Arundhati Bhattacharya details contribution of past SBI chairmen in her book

The first woman chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya of the country's largest bank, who has turned author with her autobiography - 'Indomitable - A Working Woman's Notes on Life, Work, and Leadership', has listed out the contribution of past chairmen in building the bank.

Beginning with the venerated R K Talwar, she writes, the first SBI staffer to head the bank, had laid the foundations by clearly delineating the values that the bank would embody.

Before Talwar, who was the chairman between 1969 to 1976,  the government used to depute someone from the bureaucracy to head the country's largest bank.

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D N Ghosh, in the mid-eighties, had the foresight to begin customer segmentation and launched the commercial and industrial segment. He also established subsidiaries like SBI Capital Markets, and SBI Asset Management, as well as set up the first project for computerisation.

"He was the first to get the bank rated, thus giving us access to the US markets," writes Bhattacharya. Ghosh's term at the SBI was between 1985 to 1989.

"D Basu followed his lead, and became the architect of the organisational restructuring and also contributed towards strengthening the bank's capital structure by conducting the first rights cum public equity issue," writes Bhattacharya, who is now Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer for Salesforce in India.  

D Basu headed SBI at the time between 1993 to 1995 when the country was passing through the reform and liberalisation phase.

M S Verma, who Bhattacharya considers her mentor, kicked off the core banking system project by signing an agreement with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for technology implementation. After retiring in 1998, Verma also had a stint with the government as the chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in 2020.

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A K Purwar, who stepped in after Verma, carried on the core banking initiative and begin the SBI's retail banking focus as well as initiated the business process re-engineering. Purwar's term was between 2002 and 2006.

OP Bhatt, who was at the helm at the time of high growth in the economy, completed the core banking transformation while strengthening retail focus through various custom offerings like the 'salary package'.  

"His continuation of the business process reengineering journey and innovative mortgage products helped SBI become the largest home loan lender," says 65-year-old Bhattacharya.

Bhatt also conducted the first two mergers of associate banks --State Bank of Saurashtra and State Bank of Indore, which provided SBI with multiple learnings. In fact, Bhatt also set up SBI General Insurance and SBI Pension Fund management company.

Pratip Chaudhuri from whom Bhattacharya took over in 2013, had reset the equation between the management and the Officers' Association.