ICICI Group prepares succession plan

The ICICI Group has prepared a succession plan for top-level executives of its subsidiaries.

Sources said that this is a contingency plan, in the event of an exit of the present heads of its two subsidiaries ICICI Prudential and ICICI Ventures. At present, Shikha Sharma is managing director & chief executive officer (CEO) of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, while Renuka Ramanathan is managing director and CEO of ICICI Ventures.

According to sources familiar with the developments, V Vaidyanathan, ICICI Bank Executive Director, will replace Sharma in case she moves out. Sonjoy Chatterjee, executive director, is the likely candidate to replace Ramanathan.

Vaidyanathan joined the bank in 2000 with over 10 years experience in Citibank. He has been responsible for setting up consumer finance business, which was a separate company called ICICI Personal Finance Services. The company later merged with ICICI Bank. At present, he is heading the retail banking, SME banking and rural banking divisions.

Chatterjee, who joined the erstwhile ICICI's project finance business in 1994, has been in-charge of their international business. Earlier, he was the managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank UK. Currently, he is responsible for corporate and investment banking, government banking and international banking divisions.

Chatterjee was also tipped to step into the slot created by Joint Managing Director and CFO Chanda Kochhar who is to replace K V Kamath as managing director and CEO from May 1, 2009.

Senior executives in ICICI Bank said that they have a policy whereby succession plans are there from the deputy general manager level. In response to an e-mail from Business Standard, the bank said that it does not respond to speculation. Sources also said that in a continuation with the succession plan, the likely replacements for Vaidyanathan and Chatterjee on the board of ICICI Bank could be Vijay Chandok, senior general manager and global head of SME banking division and B Madhivanan, senior general manager, customer service and phone banking.

As part of the top deck reshuffle, ICICI Prudential Executive Director N S Kannan is moving to the bank as its CFO, while Madhabi Puri Buch, who was earlier an Executive Director at ICICI Bank, has been appointed the CEO of ICICI Securities.