A NEW KOTAK BANK IN THE MAKING

AS UDAY KOTAK HANGS UP HIS BOOTS, KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK IS TRANSITIONING TO A NEW LEADERSHIP AND AN 'AMAZONISATION' STRATEGY THAT THE FOUNDER PUT IN PLACE. BUT THE PATH AHEAD COULD HAVE SPEED BUMPS 

- ANAND ADHIKARI

AFTER ALMOST TWO decades of building large businesses at Seattle-based Amazon, Bhavnish Lathia was longing for fresh challenges. A year at a start-up didn’t turn out as he had thought. Last August, he packed his bags for India and headed to Kotak Mahindra Bank’s (KMB) headquarters in Mumbai’s BKC. Elsewhere in the US, Milind Nagnur had been hopping from one global bank to another—from JP Morgan, Citibank, to Wells Fargo for more than two decades. The desire to innovate and disrupt the traditional ways of banking led him to fintech firm Early Warning Services, which pioneered real-time payments services in the US, akin to India’s National Payments Corporation of India. After witnessing India’s tech prowess via the India Stack, he decided to return home; KMB was a perfect fit. While both joined KMB around the same time in 2022, Rohit Bhasin, a veteran from FMCG behemoth Unilever, joined this February. Bhasin’s last assignment dealt with repositioning the once iconic Ponds brand while based out of Singapore. A few months later, Bhaskar Kumar—who has honed his skills at GE Capital, HSBC and Bajaj Finserv—came on board. All have been handpicked by KMB Founder and Director Uday Kotak, who on September 1 transitioned from MD & CEO to a non-executive role after two decades of building the institution that has total assets of ₹4.89 lakh crore.

Before coming on board, these four new hires had extensive meetings with Wholetime Directors Shanti Ekambaram and K.V.S. Manian, the two aspirants to the post of MD & CEO. Ekambaram and Manian, both in their 60s, will have around a decade to steer the bank, given the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) age limit of 70 years. (See box