What does it take to build institutional-scale finance careers from Kolkata, in industries where the conventional wisdom says you have to be in Mumbai? That question ran through two hours of unusually candid conversation today, as thirteen senior leaders spanning finance, law, insurance, academia, industry, media and human resources gathered for the fifth edition of the CAJobPortal × BetaFin Networking Event, themed “Resurgent Bengal & Its Impact on Careers,” at Jubilee Hall, Bhawanipur Education Socety College, Kolkata. Organised jointly by CAJobPortal.com and BetaFin Partners, the event brought together CFOs, Big 4 leadership, an IPO advisory founder, a law firm partner, an insurance broking veteran, industrialists, media leadership, and HR and strategy heads from organisations including the Sanmarg Group, Adventz Group, Senco Gold & Diamonds, EY, Berger Paints, CESC, RPSG Group, CredAble, TT Ltd, Uirtus Advisors and Salasar Insurance Brokers. The event was anchored by Anurag Singal, who holds a CA and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad – PGPX C02015. Emcees were Sonia Singal (CAJobPortal) and Binita Baid (VP, Citicorp). Keynote and Proceedings The day opened with a keynote by Ms Ruchika Gupta, President, Sanmarg Group, on leadership and enterprise-building in Bengal today. Two panel discussions followed, moderated by Anurag Singal, Founder of BetaFin Partners and Co-founder of CAJobPortal.com, who pushed panelists well past rehearsed answers into the specific decisions and numbers behind their careers. Panel 1 opened with Group CFO Pramod Gupta, who went from the shop floor of a unionised Haldia plant in 1991 — negotiating with competing union leaders — to scaling global operations at Unilver, DHL,  Microsoft and Novartis, before returning to Bengal to turn around Haldia Petrochemicals and later lead finance at Adventz. Sanjay Banka traced a similar arc from building India’s earliest private greenfield telecom infrastructure with Hutchison in 1995 to engineering the Senco Gold and Diamonds IPO — one of the region’s most successful retail listings. Harish Agarwal recalled entering the Kolkata market in 1993 as an article student at a Big 4 firm and now runs EY’s entire eastern practice as Managing Partner. Kaushik Ghosh described how Berger Paints scaled into a globally recognised manufacturer — navigating an Ind-AS transition across 14 subsidiaries, a GST migration, and an ERP overhaul — while staying headquartered in Kolkata throughout. Sanjeev K. Sancheti spoke about walking away from the role of Global CFO at Welspun to found Uirtus Advisors, which in four years has become one of India’s leading IPO advisors — including steering Netweb Technologies’ investor relations as its market capitalisation grew from a ₹2,800 crore IPO valuation to nearly ₹30,000 crore. Sanjay K. Jain, an IIM Ahmedabad double gold medalist, weighed in on what genuine industrial reclamation for Bengal requires, beyond the press-release version of the story. Panel 2 turned to the anatomy of choosing — and staying in — Bengal. Subir Verma, ED & CHRO for RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group’s Power Business, spoke on relocating from Mumbai to Kolkata at the peak of a career built at Tata and Reliance. Shruti Swaika discussed leaving 13 years as a Partner at Fox & Mandal to found her own practice, Swaika & Co. Urvashi Bhura, who helped build Too Yumm and scale it nationally before launching Dr. Vaidya’s, Naturali, Within and Three60, made the case that Bengal is an underrated consumer-brands hub, not just a supply-chain base. Yogesh Patwari spoke to whether Bengal’s boardrooms — and not just its fintech conversations — are actually ready for digital trade finance. Prof. Dilip Shah, Dean of Student Affairs at BESC, addressed the gap between what students expect from their careers and what the market actually offers. Ambarish Khaitan described building a pan-India insurance broking business from Kolkata over nearly 18 years, in an industry still dominated by Mumbai-headquartered players. Panel 1 — Pramod Gupta (Group CFO, Adventz Group), Sanjay Banka (Group CFO & Head–IR, Senco Gold and Diamonds), Harish Agarwal (Managing Partner, Kolkata & East, and COO, EY India Consulting), Sanjeev K. Sancheti (Founder Partner, Uirtus Advisors), Sanjay K. Jain (Managing Director, TT Ltd), Kaushik Ghosh (CFO, Berger Paints), and Ambarish Khaitan (Executive Director, Salasar Insurance Brokers). Panel 2 — Prof. Dilip Shah (Dean of Student Affairs & Rector, BESC), Shruti Swaika (Advocate, Calcutta High Court, and Founder, Swaika & Co.), Subir Verma (ED & CHRO – Power Business, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group), Urvashi Bhura (VP – Strategy & M&A, Guiltfree Industries, RP-SG Group), and Yogesh Patwari (Executive Director, CredAble). Recognising Emerging Talent The event also felicitated Ritij Khurana, who secured All India Rank 2 in the CA Final, May 2026 — a moment that drew one of the loudest rounds of applause of the day, as senior leaders in the room gave a standing ovation to the next generation entering the profession. Moderator’s Note Closing the second panel, Anurag Singal noted that the day’s most striking thread wasn’t capital or infrastructure, but the deliberate, often counterintuitive choices each leader made to build, return to, or stay in Bengal — and that when leaders of this calibre choose to bet on the region, it carries real signal for the next generation of finance professionals deciding where to plant their careers. About CAJobPortal.com CAJobPortal.com is a specialist recruitment platform for Chartered Accountants and finance professionals, with over a decade of operating history and 125+ hiring clients across India. About BetaFin Partners BetaFin Partners is a transaction advisory firm offering valuation, ESOP advisory, and financial due diligence services to businesses across sectors