AT THE HELM
AT THE HELM - Ratan Kumar Kesh , MD and CEO, Bandhan Bank
- IBJ Bureau
- Sep 03, 2024
It is a little over a month since Ratan Kumar Kesh
took over as interim managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO)
of Bandhan Bank. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved Mr Kesh’s new
role for a period of three months or until a new MD and CEO assumes office,
whichever is earlier.
Mr Kesh has been with the Kolkata-based bank for
over a year now, joining it as executive director (ED) and chief operating
officer (COO) in March 2023. The veteran banker with over three decades of
experience in the banking industry has held several stints with top lenders in
the past, such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, and Axis Bank. Before
entering the banking sector, he was also associated with the Aditya Birla Group
and the RPG Group.
Besides his distinguished career in non-banking and
banking sectors, Mr Kesh also boasts of impeccable educational qualifications. Apart
from a degree in mechanical engineering from NIT Durgapur, Mr Kesh has
completed his Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Management from NMIMS, Mumbai. Additionally,
he is a certified quality engineer from Quality Council of Indiana, USA, and has
also undertaken advanced leadership courses from IIM-A.
As ED and COO of Bandhan Bank earlier, Mr Kesh had led
from the front in building the architecture for the lender’s technology,
operations and processes. In fact, these building blocks have played a vital
role in transforming Bandhan from a microfinance institution into a universal
bank. In June 2015, the RBI granted banking licence to Bandhan, making it the
first-ever microfinance institution to become a universal bank in the country.
As Mr Kesh steps into the big shoes of Chandra
Shekhar Ghosh – who had founded Bandhan as a microfinance institution in 2001
and who stepped down as MD and CEO of Bandhan Bank in July 2024 – he will have
to attend to numerous challenges before the lender. The transition from a
microfinance institution into a universal bank is still work in progress.
Bandhan Bank is swiftly diversifying its loan portfolio from small-ticket loans
to have a greater say across commercial banking, MSME credit, corporate
banking, housing finance, personal loans, gold loan and many other segments.
Incidentally, Mr Kesh has been a part of the bank’s
new strategic plan involving all business units for the next three years. The
new plan focuses on increasing the share of secured assets while maintaining a
balance between the quality of portfolios and their returns. The veteran banker
is also giving final touches to the new plan, which envisages a big thrust to
Bandhan’s universal banking ambitions. Simultaneously, the plan also focuses on
retaining the essential characteristics of its past as a microfinance institution
and remaining rooted to the ground. Bandhan Bank’s strategic plan may seem too
onerous. Yet, achieving it could be easier for an accomplished banker like Mr
Kesh.
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