About current affairs

As further evidence of Kamaths egalitarian nature, his deputy, Ms. Chanda Kochhar, was named as his successor in December 2008, another major first for an Indian bank and unusual for the banking sector internationally. He does not find ICICIs reputation for employing so many women in high posts unusual in any way. It is a natural part of putting a meritocracy process in place that throws up so many women leaders. Current affairs strongly believe that if you are truly following a process that is very driven, a large number of women will come into leadership roles. None of it is a conscious move. The moment it has to be a conscious effort, it loses its value. The companys HR strategy reflects this natural drift toward attracting the best. About current affairs is fast-expanding nature of the group makes this process easier, with young graduates finding ICICI the perfect ground for taking on challenging roles. Kamath says.The work needs to be interesting and challenging enough, but also you have to ensure that there is enough delegation. Young people must be given the opportunity to think and do things for themselves or they are going to become mere bureaucrats. They must also be compensated appropriately, but not outrageously. Attrition is a major challenge in India at this point, so we also run on a little extra talent pool so that they can easily be moved around. ICICI has a history of allowing its employees a degree of freedom to be entrepreneurs. In the late 1980s we gave it a further push by building new institutions, particularly in the consumer credit market. Each aspect of that required an entrepreneurial spirit, be it credit cards, mortgage, or auto finance. We picked leaders who we believed would be able to perform, thrive on delegation, can take independent decisions, and build a good team. The important thing was to move away from any scope of a bureaucratic mindset that works on orders and has to grapple with layers on layers of management. It is not too difficult to move from entrepreneurial to bureaucratic, all it requires is a few processes to destroy the entire ethos of the company. How else could one explain the success of lieutenants like Sonjoy Chatterjee in establishing a profitable franchise across the western world at such break-neck speed and with such success? Kamaths ability to create leaders has resulted in ICICIs first overseas operation London forming the fulcrum for the banks international ambitions and being used as a launch pad for operations in Germany and Belgium. ICICI UK has more branches than other Indian banks who have been in Britain for over 50 years, has more non-Indian clients, and is praised for offering the UKs most consistent internet no-frills savings products. You could also take the examples of Kalpana Morparia, who after Kamaths grooming took on the CEOs role for JP Morgan in India, or Shikha Sharma, who now heads up Axis Bank, taking to another bank all her learning from successfully building ICICIs retail offering. At a time when there were fewer than 100 ATMs in India, Kamath decided to carpet-bomb the country with 1,000 ATMs. Experts wondered if this was a slightly crazy move when connectivity was fragile, but Kamath had worked out three

levels to cope with that: a dial-up, a leased line, and a satellite link. As for the customers, they were overjoyed that they were saved the hassle of long queues at their local branch for a simple transaction.The strategy paid off, as ICICIs customer base jumped from 100,000 in 2000 to over 20 million within the next decade.