R S Sharma is Chairman & Managing Director of ONGC. Being on the Board of ONGC since 1st March 2002 and holding the additional charge of CMD of ONGC since May 2006, R S Sharma has been credited to have brought in numerous business improvements in ONGC; leveraging strengths to build up its fortunes over the last few years. In these five years, he played an important role in providing value dimensions to ONGC’s business, which grew from less than 6 billion US dollars to around 20 billion US dollars. He was also on the Board of ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL), India’s biggest multinational, before taking over as Director (F) on the Board of parent ONGC. Sharma played a pivotal role in financial engineering of ONGC’s other subsidiary MRPL also, which was ‘sick’ when ONGC acquired it. The topping of the cake, however, is Sharma’s thrust on augmenting capex investment, for growth. In 2006-07, ONGC board cleared investment proposals worth over Rs 34,000 crore. Mr. R S Sharma is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Cost & Works Accountants of India, and an Associate Member of the Indian Institute of Bankers. His run-up to this career peak commenced 35 years ago in 1972 with the Union Bank of India. After serving there in Credit Appraisal and related spheres for a decade, the banker relocated to Baghdad, to head the Finance function of another public enterprise – The Indian Road Construction Company. The next six years in the construction company (four years in the Middle East) saw him pilot many important projects single-handedly, before he joined ONGC in July 1988 as Joint Director (Finance), posted at Assam. Under his stewardship, ONGC was assigned Baa1 Credit Rating, the highest-ever Credit Rating assigned by Moody’s to any Indian Corporate. Several awards have come his way, in recognition to his individual contributions, one of the latest being in November 2006, viz. CNBC TV-18 CFO Award 2006 for excellence in Oil and Allied services category – India’s most recognized award for excellence in the financial field. He was also conferred with India CFO Award 2005 – Excellence in Finance in PSU n December 2005, by International Market Assessment (IMA), in association with BNP Paribas, Sun Micro Systems and CNBC TV-18.
