Two Anups, two IIT-IIM alumni: HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra get new CEOs

MUMBAI: It was a day of coincidences in the banking sector. Two private banks, two new CEOs named Anup, both ICICI Bank veterans, both IIT-IIM alumni, both 55 years old and both from West Bengal. HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank ended CEO succession uncertainty on Thursday, with RBI clearing new chiefs for the two private sector lenders after their incumbent CEOs decided against seeking fresh terms. HDFC Bank appointed Anup Bagchi as MD & CEO from Oct 27, succeeding Sashidhar Jagdishan, while Anup Kumar Saha will be Kotak Mahindra Bank chief for three years from Jan 1, 2027, succeeding Ashok Vaswani. Bagchi, with more than 30 years of experience across retail and wholesale banking, capital markets, treasury and insurance, spent much of his career with the ICICI Group. He was executive director at ICICI Bank from 2017 to 2023, overseeing retail, business/rural and wholesale banking, before heading ICICI Securities. Since June 2023, he has been MD & CEO of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance. Under Bagchi, ICICI Prudential Life's annualised premium equivalent crossed 10,000 crore for the first time in FY25, while profit after tax (PAT) rose nearly 40% to 1,189 crore. Bagchi, Saha are both IIT-IIM alumni Bagchi, the first outsider to lead HDFC Bank since it was set up in 1994, will focus on loan growth, credit-deposit dynamics in a competitive rate environment and extracting synergies from the HDFC merger. Jagdishan, who succeeded Aditya Puri in late 2020, led the bank through the pandemic, expanded digital operations and completed the merger. After RBI approved Bagchi’s appointment and remuneration, the bank’s board will induct him as an additional director from Oct 2, subject to shareholder approval. His term runs to Oct 26, 2029. Saha, currently a whole-time director at Kotak, joined the bank in January 2026 and has overseen retail banking, data analytics and marketing since March. Before Kotak, he was MD & CEO of Bajaj Finance. He has over 32 years’ experience, including 25 years in financial services. During his 14 years at ICICI Bank, Saha led retail secured assets, business intelligence, retail and rural collections, credit cards and retail structured finance. Vaswani had announced he would step down when his term ends in Dec. Kotak chairman C S Rajan said Saha would lead the franchise towards sustainable growth, while Vaswani highlighted his experience across businesses, customer segments and functions. As of June 30, Kotak Mahindra Group had 5,916 branches and a consolidated balance sheet of Rs 10.1 lakh crore. Bagchi is an IIT Kanpur and IIM Bangalore alumnus; Saha holds a BTech from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from IIM Lucknow.