ICICI Bank's Sandeep Bakhshi will report to the board in Chanda Kochhar's absence
Sandeep Bakhshi has been appointed whole-time director and chief operating officer (COO) designate by the board of ICICI Bank Ltd
after a long meeting on Monday. The private bank's managing director and chief executive Chanda Kochhar will be on a long leave till an independent investigation into an alleged conflict of interest matter in lending to the Videocon Group concludes.
Mr Bakhshi's appointment as
COO will be for five years, subject to regulatory approvals, ICICI Bank said in a statement. He will take over as the COO from June 19, or on the date of regulatory and other approvals, whichever is later.
Mr Bakhshi will be responsible for handling all the businesses and corporate centre functions at the private bank. All executive directors on the board of ICICI Bank and the executive management will report to him, the bank said.
He will report to Chanda Kochhar, who will continue in her role as MD and CEO of ICICI Bank. However,
during the period of her leave, Mr Bakhshi will report to the board.
Sandeep Bakhshi has been the managing director and CEO of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company since August 1, 2010. During his tenure, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has been a leading private life insurance company in the country, ICICI Bank said in a statement.
Before this role, Mr Bakhshi was the deputy managing director of ICICI Bank. In this role, he headed the retail and subsequently the wholesale business at the private bank.
Before moving to the bank, Sandeep Bakhshi was the MD and CEO of ICICI Lombard General Insurance. Under his leadership, ICICI Lombard grew to be a leading private general insurance company in India, ICICI Bank said in the statement.
Mr Bakhshi has extensive experience of leading both corporate and retail businesses across
ICICI group. He started his career with ICICI Ltd in 1986. He looked after the corporate clients for the northern and eastern regions of ICICI Ltd before joining ICICI Lombard in 2002.
His work responsibilities included business development, project appraisals, project monitoring and business re-structuring.
Mr Bakhshi is a mechanical engineer from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh and has a post-graduate degree in management from Xavier Labour Relations Institute or XLRI, Jamshedpur.
ICICI Bank claims to be India's largest private sector bank by consolidated assets. Its consolidated total assets stood at $172.5 billion at March 31, 2018.