HDFC Bank launches global search for Aditya Puri's successor

MUMBAI: India’s most valuable lender HDFC Bank will soon start a global search for a successor to Aditya Puri, the man who built the country’s best start-up since liberalization. The private lender’s board will constitute a committee to look for candidates from domestic and global markets, the bank said in its annual report.
“The board will identify a successor and work to ensure that this is done in a manner that will allow appropriate time for an effective transition of responsibilities,” it said. “The nomination & remuneration committee of the board will constitute a search committee to undertake a global search of both internal and external candidates.”

The industry is keenly watching whether or not the Reserve Bank of India will extend the 70-year age limit for a private sector bank chief. The age limit was last raised in 2014. Puri, 69, is set to retire in October 2020.

Speculation has been rife for many years on who would succeed Puri – the longest serving chief of an Indian bank – and it has only intensified after he underwent a cardiac surgery in February 2016.

Puri, India’s highest paid bank chief, built HDFC Bank from scratch in his uninterrupted stint as MD since the bank’s inception in 1994. HDFC Bank’s steady growth and performance are widely attributed to Puri’s no-nonsense leadership.

In May 2018, Puri said while speaking to analysts that the HDFC Bank board would soon start the process of identifying his successor and the depth of leadership within the bank would ensure a smooth transition. The plan was to start the process of identifying a successor 18-24 months ahead of Puri’s retirement, and the bank planned to have a 12-month overlap period when the successor would work with Puri.

Only three months after that pronouncement, Puri’s most trusted lieutenant and the heir apparent, Paresh Sukthankar, announced his sudden departure from the bank, throwing open the succession race. The bank has till date not appointed a replacement for Sukthankar.

Executive director Kaizad Bharucha and chief financial officer Sashidhar Jagdishan are among other key managerial personnel. In March 2017, Puri had told ET that the bank has substantial depth in leadership to take on the baton from him.

“I have four more years to go. I will clear the road-map even further by then. We have depth inside, outside everywhere. One or two years before my retirement, of course, the successor will be named, but if I do it too early, I will lose my effectiveness also, don’t you agree?”