‘Management by consensus' is SBI chief's style of functioning

“Down-to-earth and carries his team along” is how senior SBI officials describe their new Chairman, Mr Pratip Chaudhuri.

These two facets of his personality shone through in his preliminary remarks at his first media interaction last Friday after he took charge the previous day.

Collective leadership

“We thought that we will strike a balance between continuity, not making too far-reaching changes, and also entrusting senior executives with significant, meaningful roles which have an important bearing on the bank's overall functioning…With this, we present the collective leadership face of SBI. I would like to confess that I may not have the full and detailed understanding of all the facets and all the subdivisions of the bank. So, here we are, all together, able colleagues, ready to answer all your questions,” said Mr Chaudhuri.

The new SBI chief, who joined the bank as a probationary officer in 1974, is also known as a people's man. This is borne out by the fact that while referring to SBI as a people intensive bank, he said, “We will be careful and quite considerate that our 200,000-plus colleagues feel that they are all part of this great journey and adequate attention will be paid to them.”

While his predecessor Mr O. P. Bhatt was known to speak his mind, Mr Chaudhuri is diplomatic in his communication.

The new SBI chief will try to find the middle ground for internal and external challenges and is unlikely to ruffle feathers of stakeholders, especially of the ‘regulatory kind', say officials.

Will take on the challenges

The nearly one-and-a-half hour interaction saw the new Chairman and his top team readily answer a volley of questions on the challenges facing India's biggest lender, be they on non-performing assets (the bank has seen some acceleration), the much debated ‘special home loans scheme', market-share and profitability, overseas acquisitions/ expansion, merger of associate banks or revitalising the savings bank account.

In his two-and-a-half-years stint at the helm, the mild-mannered SBI chief will tackle all the aforementioned challenges head-on, say his colleagues.

“The new Chairman will be as dogged in his pursuit of growth as his predecessor. He will not ease off on the growth pedal,” said a senior SBI official.

Known for ‘management by consensus' style of functioning, Mr Chaudhuri held several key positions in SBI in a career spanning 37 years. He was one of the key architects to effect the merger of the erstwhile State Bank of Saurashtra with its parent, SBI.

Before being catapulted to the Chairman's hot seat, Mr Chaudhuri was Deputy Managing Director (International Banking).

> kram@thehindu.co.in

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