HDFC Bank Will Have A New CEO After 26 Years, RBI Approves Appointment Of Sashidhar Jagdishan As Aditya Puri’s Successor

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of Sashidhar Jagdishan as the next chief executive officer of HDFC Bank, CNBC-TV18 reported.

Sashidhar Jagdishan will succeed Aditya Puri who will step down as the bank’s longest serving CEO after serving in the role for 26 years. Puri is set to retire by October this year.

Shashidhar Jagdishan, who is currently serving as the additional director of HDFC Bank. also heads various functions of the group Finance, Human Resources, Legal & Secretarial, Administration, Infrastructure, Corporate Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Shashidhar Jagdishan joined the bank around 1996 as a Manager in the Finance function, and then went on to became Business Head - Finance in 1999 and Chief Financial Officer in the year 2008.

Shashidhar Jagdishan will assumed stewardship of the bank in the middle of a tough, challenging environment following the onset of Covid-19 pandemic. About 9 per cent of the HDFC Bank’s loan book is under moratorium as on June 30.

The bank recently disclosed that that COVID-19 has resulted in shrinking of its retail loan portfolio. Announcing the first quarter results of 2020-21, the bank said that its auto loan portfolio shrunk to Rs 81,082 crore from Rs 83,935 crore while the home loan portfolio declined to Rs 62,652 crore from Rs 63,445 crore. Two-wheeler loans also shrunk to Rs 9,568 crore from Rs 9,855 crore.

The bank has also been hit by departure of senior level executives. Abhay Aima, group head of private banking, Ashok Khanna, group head of secured vehicle loans and Munish Mittal, chief information officer have all quit in recent times.

In November last year, HDFC bank had constituted a six-member search committee to Identify a replacement for Puri and had hired Egon Zehnder for assistance. Puri was an advisor to the search committee.