The government today announced the appointment of Rajnish Kumar as the successor to Arundhati Battacharya as the next Chairman of State Bank of India, India’s largest lender. Rajnish will take charge of the post on October 7, when the incumbent chairman’s tenure comes to an end.
Appointed as SBI’s first woman chief, Arundhati Bhattacharya got a one-year extension in October last year and oversaw the process of SBI absorbing its five associate banks and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank in April.
SBI’s new chief Rajnish Kumar is not an outsider to the bank and currently serves as one of the four managing directors at SBI. Kumar, who has a three-year term at the helm, joined SBI as a Probationary Officer (PO) in 1980 and has worked in various departments.
Prior to his appointment as MD in 2015, Kumar led SBI’s merchant banking arm, SBI Capital Markets, as managing director and CEO.
In his career spanning over three decades at the bank, Kumar has held several key portfolios at SBI across various business verticals and has handled two overseas assignments in Canada and UK.
He has vast experience in handing large credit, project finance, foreign exchange and retail banking.
In his three-year tenure at the bank, Kumar will have to see through the ongoing resolution of bad loans and boost lending, a crucial barometer of economic recovery.
