All you need to know about Sandeep Bakhshi, the new MD & CEO of ICICI Bank

Private sector ICICI Bank's new MD & CEO Sandeep Bakhshi is a man of few words. The 57-year-old Bakhshi, who was brought in as a crisis manager in June this year when Chanda Kochhar went on for an indefinite leave, was already running the bank as its chief operating officer. His reporting was directly to the board members. With Kochhar finally leaving the bank, Bakhshi is the new MD & CEO of the largest private bank in terms of consolidated assets of over Rs 11 lakh crore. Bakhshi has a clear 12-13 years to give to the bank as the retirement age is 70 years in the private sector banks. This long tenure is expected to bring stability and clarity for the institutional investors.

In a career spanning over three decades, Bakhshi's rise at the private bank was steady. In the initial years, Bakhshi managed the project finance and other businesses when the ICICI Group was a developmental financial institution. He was given a challenging assignment early on in his career when the Group was foraying into sunrise businesses like general insurance in the early 2000 decade. Bakhshi ran the company profitably. ICICI Lombard today is listed on the bourses with a market valuation of Rs 35,000 crore. Bakhshi was briefly brought in the bank as a deputy managing director when Kochhar was in charge. That was after the global financial meltdown. He was later moved to life insurance subsidiary where V Vaidyanathan left to turn entrepreneur. ICICI Prudential Life insurance was a big subsidiary and Bakshi was given charge to handle the sudden exit of its MD & CEO. Bakshi focused on making the company more digital as that was bringing in a big disruption in the industry. Today, ICICI Prudential life is a profitable company with good market valuations.

Bakhshi was groomed under both N Vaghul and K V Kamath. He was influenced the most by Vaghul's leadership. Bakhshi was among the handful of leaders picked by Vaghul and Kamath to head businesses independently. The talent pool of ICICI Group is well known in the market. In fact, ICICI professionals like Zarin Daruwala, Renuka Ramnath, V Vaidyanathan, Sonjoy Chatterjee, and Kalpana Morparia are all heading big financial services business. Ramnath and Vaidyanathan have turned entrepreneur.

Bakhshi's elevation is expected to be smooth as he is the senior most professional in the group. Unlike Kochhar's elevation when many seasoned professional left the bank, Bakhshi's senior management team is much junior to him. Vishakha Mulye heads the wholesale banking. Anup Bagchi looks after the retail business. Vijay Chandok takes care of SME and international business. Insiders say Bakhshi commands respect from the team members. His management style is all about delegation. "He allows the team to do the talking," says an insider. Unlike K V Kamath and Kochhar, Bakhshi is also media shy. He is also not a growth manager, but focuses on growth with profitability. Insider informs his message to team when he took over as COO was to focus on customers.

Some say the biggest limitation of Bakshi will be his banking experience as he was away in subsidiaries in the last two decades. The deterioration in asset quality and retail banking (digital) growth will be the focus area of Bakhshi in the immediate future.