What Set the Stage for Her Career in Global Payments
Netra Kumar grew up in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu in southern India, during a time when her city looked very different from the thriving global hub it is today. Her childhood was profoundly shaped by her grandparents, whose influence she credits with laying the foundation for her education, confidence, and worldview.
“I was raised by my grandparents,” she says. “They essentially took care of me and my brother, and I’m very grateful for that.”
Their home provided structure and stability during a period when her family was managing significant challenges. Kumar remembers her grandmother, Bollama, as a singular figure who pushed against tradition and insisted on carving a different path for her granddaughter.
“Bollama was a force to reckon with,” she laughs. “Most traditional Indian families are patriarchal, but she stood up to everyone with opinions about what my life should be like. She made it her life’s mission to ensure that I got a good education because she knew that would get me on the right path to a successful career.”
Her grandmother’s strength came from an unusual early experience. During the British colonial era, a British civil service couple living in her district took a strong interest in young Bollamma, teaching her English and exposing her to a different cultural model for the roles women could play. The couple even tried to adopt her when they left India. Her mother refused, but Bollamma’s worldview had already been shaped. Kumar says this exposure nurtured an independence that echoed through generations.
“She had seen at a very young age that there is a different way to treat women and a different way to live,” Kumar says. “And she brought that perspective into raising me.”
It meant Kumar’s upbringing often diverged from that of her peers. While other girls were expected to perform domestic chores, Kumar was encouraged to focus on her studies. “I was a really good student, and my grandmother would tell me to study while my brother did the chores,” she says. “It was little things like that which none of my friends had. I wasn’t from a rich family, but I had privileges even the rich girls didn’t have.”
Kumar’s grandfather reinforced this trajectory, having broken boundaries within their community himself by pursuing higher education and a corporate career.
“He paved the way by showing what was possible,” she says. “He was very well regarded for having a professional life that was unheard of in my community.”
Early Influences That Shaped Her Global Payments Leadership Career
By 16, Kumar was supplementing her education with a series of informal jobs that she still remembers with clarity and humor. “Yes, I was Fred Flintstone and Yogi Bear,” she says, describing how she wore full character costumes to entertain children in shopping malls. “The costumes made you really hot, and kids are not kind to people in costumes.”
She also took sales and promotional gigs, from pushing Tropicana in supermarkets to handing out bank pamphlets on the street. These experiences sharpened her instincts early.
“Those are the kinds of jobs that really build resilience,” she says. “You hear a lot of no’s, but you cannot let that get you down. You reframe and bounce back when you knock on the next door.”
When Kumar’s father passed away at age sixteen, her grandmother’s resolve became even more visible. Relatives urged the family to arrange a quick marriage for her, something common at the time. Her grandmother refused.
“She said I did not need to get married to be taken care of,” Kumar recalls. “It was very heartwarming to get that kind of support from someone of her generation.”
How Early Jobs Built the Resilience Behind Her Global Banking Career
After earning a bachelor’s degree in commerce and an MBA, Kumar began her career at Cosmopolitan magazine, selling advertising space. The job came with glamour but not long-term viability.
“I was the primary breadwinner for my family,” she says. “I didn’t see a future in that role as it would not allow me to do what I needed to do for my family, or help get me to where I wanted to be professionally.”
She soon transitioned into finance through GE’s consumer durables Finance division. “GE was an amazing training ground,” she says. “My first role was managing all of GE’s consumer durables dealers across the city. You were traveling, building relationships, handling pricing, and managing talent that was not highly skilled. It was not easy, but I learned so much.”
Her most difficult obstacle was language. Although she grew up in Chennai, her grandparents emphasized Hindi, the national language, rather than Tamil, the regional one. Upon joining GE, she discovered her team and clients spoke almost exclusively in Tamil. She adapted the only way available.
“They would laugh at me and correct me, but being vulnerable helped build relationships,” she says. “I was trying my best, and they appreciated that.”
Her emotional intelligence came through in other moments as well. She formed a close connection with the owner of a large dealership chain, who had political ambitions and struggled to write fluently in English.
“I offered to help him write a letter to Sonia Gandhi,” she says. “I worried that if she never responded, he would blame me, but the effort helped build a very strong relationship. He even invited me to his daughter’s wedding.”
Rising Through India’s Banking Sector Into Global Roles
After GE, Kumar moved into banking, first with ICICI Bank as a sales manager overseeing small business accounts, then to Standard Chartered, overseeing retail assets across multiple cities. At Citi, she spent twelve years in a range of leadership roles that shaped her future path in global payments.
Being the only woman in sales in her early career came with its own set of challenges. Many executives view this type of leadership development as key to navigating today’s complex global markets.
Her grandmother’s guidance reappeared in her mind: stay focused on your own strengths. “I tried so hard to talk passionately about cricket so I could belong, but I eventually realized that clients valued me for my credibility, my advisory expertise, and my responsiveness,” she says. “I learned to build relationships, based on interests that were authentic to me.
How She Broke Into U.S. Banking Through 400 Networking Conversations
When Kumar married through India’s arranged marriage system, her husband was already based in the United States. To join him, she needed a job that would support a work visa. What followed was a persistence story that astonished even seasoned executives.
“I reached out to everyone in Citi’s global directory because I knew no one in the U.S. except my husband, who was also basically a stranger,” she says. “I met with over 400 people over a 10-month period.”
These were not interviews. They were informational conversations with “faceless people” on phone lines, hoping someone would vouch for her skills. Her competition was formidable: candidates already in the United States who needed no visa and understood the market.
In the end, she received two offers and accepted a role in San Francisco managing technology clients. After a year on the West Coast, she relocated to New York and entered the payments field.
“Within a year, I was promoted to manager,” she says. “I worked with consumer, retail, and healthcare clients. I was with Citi in the U.S. for four and a half years.”
Life in America came with amusing cultural shocks as well. “In India, you do not have to be rich to have domestic help. Here, you do everything yourself,” she says. She also remembers constantly boarding trains in the wrong direction because she did not yet understand uptown and downtown.
The weather was another challenge. “I am still not used to the cold,” she says. “People ask how long I have been in the U.S., and I say my body just has not acclimated.”
Leading Healthcare Payments at Bank of America
In 2019, recruitment calls from Bank of America changed her trajectory.
“I thought I would retire at Citi,” she says.
Her early apprehension faded quickly once she joined. “The people are genuinely nice,” she says. “It has been a great six and a half years.”
At Bank of America, she moved from middle market to large corporate, focusing on healthcare. In April of 2024, she was promoted to lead the global healthcare sales team within the payments solutions business.
Her pandemic experience was deeply tied to her clients’ mission-critical work.
“You could not meet people, but you had to build relationships,” she says. “It came down to credibility and responsiveness. Healthcare was front and center, and our clients were impacting patient outcomes across the globe. Helping our clients move money so that life-saving drugs and med-devices could reach patients was incredibly fulfilling.”
Advocacy and Mentorship for Future Women in Payments and Banking
Kumar’s commitment to women and young people has deep roots. “I have always focused on women, immigrants, and children from underprivileged backgrounds,” she says. “In India, I did a lot of work with animals as well.”
Today, she mentors through Women in Payments, where she serves on the board of the association’s mentorship program. She also works with Year Up, a nonprofit helping young adults from underrepresented backgrounds transition into professional careers.
“I do mock interviews, resume reviews, and help them prepare for the industry,” she says. “I mentor a lot of people inside and outside the bank.”
Her Leadership Philosophy for Getting Things Done
When asked to define her most reliable professional capability, Kumar answers without hesitation.
“It is the ability to get things done,” she says. “Resourcefulness, resilience, work ethic, influencing people; all of that matters. But at the end of the day, you figure it out and you get things done.”
She laughs when asked whether that skill was more necessary during the pandemic or in adapting to domestic life in the U.S.
“Definitely on the domestic side,” she says. “Working from home with my husband was interesting. He was used to his own rhythm, and suddenly I was there too. I would want to share updates between calls, and he would say I was distracting him.”
The Guidance That Continues to Shape Her Success in Global Banking
Asked what guidance she carries into difficult moments, Kumar again returns to her grandmother.
“She was my biggest champion,” she says. “Her constant reinforcement was: You are amazing; you are going to go great places; ignore the negative voices around you.”
As a young woman, the advice sometimes frustrated her. Today, it forms the core of her leadership identity.
“She would say that the attention I got from naysayers in the workplace, and beyond, was just nuisance value. Noise. Ignore it,” Kumar says. “At the time, I thought she did not get it. But now I see the wisdom in what she was trying to teach me. And I wish I could tell her that.”
