Devina Mehra doesn’t get swayed by popular opinion. The founder-MD of portfolio management services firm First Global prefers sticking to her guts instead. A gold medallist from IIM-A, Mehra applied for a broker licence with the BSE in the 90s, ignoring calls to do otherwise. “You are an outsider. You neither belong to the brokers’ club, nor you are a Gujarati; you won’t get it. This is what a lot of people told me. I still applied and got it,” says Mehra. In another against-the-grain decision, she took First Global to the U.S., when it was relatively uncommon to analyse American firms from India.
In 2021, Mehra lunched FG-HUM smallcase — a basket of stocks and ETFs for equity investment for small investors — based on First Global’s Human + Machine Model. One of the PMS schemes, First Global India Super 50, with 83.8% return between March 2020 and June 2022, is the best performing in the multi-cap category, according to Sebi data.
Mehra doesn’t seek claim to fame just because she is a woman, but she doesn’t shy away from talking about her achievements either. “One doesn’t need to be modest when it comes to achievements. Celebrate those and set an example for other women.” — Aprajita Sharma