The Reserve Bank of India has approved the appointment of Sashidhar Jagdishan as managing director and CEO of HDFC Bank to replace Aditya Puri, India’s largest private-sector lender said on Tuesday.
Jagdishan will take charge on October 27 for a three-year period, HDFC Bank said in a stock-exchange filing.
Puri, who has been HDFC Bank’s managing director since its inception in 1994, is due to retire on October 26 when he reaches the age limit of 70 years, as laid down by the RBI for private banks’ chiefs.
HDFC Bank’s shares jumped 4.4% to trade around Rs 1,046.20 apiece after the announcement. The benchmark BSE Sensex was up 1.5% just before noon.
The bank said its board of directors will meet soon to approve Jagdishan’s appointment as the new chief.
Jagdishan and Kaizad M Bharucha were the two internal candidates that the bank had sent to the RBI for approval.
In the annual general meeting of HDFC Bank in July, Puri had said that his successor would be one who had been with the bank for 25 years.
“There has been a lot of talk about the successor not being with us for a long time. Our potential successor has been with us for 25 years. My successor was always in place, at least in my mind. It is now for the RBI to decide,” said Puri.
Jagdishan joined the bank in 1996 as a manager in the finance function and rose through the ranks to become the chief financial officer in 2008. He is currently the group head of finance, human resources, legal and secretarial, administration, infrastructure, corporate communications and corporate social responsibility at HDFC Bank.
Prior to joining HDFC Bank, Jagdishan worked with Deutsche Bank in Mumbai. He is a science graduate and is a chartered accountant by qualification. He also holds a master’s degree in economics of money, banking and finance from the University of Sheffield, UK.
