Srinivasa Rangan to look after corporate affairs in HDFC Bank, subsidiaries

Role involves oversight of all group companies and other responsibilities

V Srinivasa Rangan, who was chief financial officer and executive director of erstwhile HDFC Ltd, will look after corporate affairs at HDFC Bank after being inducted on the board of India’s largest private sector lender, sources said.

The Reserve Bank of India, in the last week of November, approved Rangan’s appointment as a wholetime director for three years. The role involves oversight of all group companies and responsibilities for legal, secretarial, information and security, ethics, and culture.

HDFC Bank has at least 14 subsidiaries, compared to two before merging with HDFC Ltd on July 1, 2023. Ethics and culture are important to the lender as its managing director (MD) and chief executive officer, Sashidhar Jagdishan, is taking steps to build an inclusive organisation.

“The bank is committed to fostering diversity and inclusion. We have prioritised our focus on two aspects of diversity: Gender and persons with disabilities. Women comprising 25 per cent of our workforce by 2025 is an aspiration that we are actively pursuing,” said Jagdishan in an address to shareholders in July.

He spoke about managers who transgress the bank’s way of working and the need to address such issues quickly. “We have some distance to traverse on this front. We are taking concrete steps towards building an inclusive organisation, which will go a long way in reining in attrition in the coming years,” he had said.

“As a parent, Rangan will ensure the right policies, processes, oversight for all the group companies,” said a source aware of the development.

“He will have oversight on several risks: Compliance, control, reputation, regulatory, technology, cyber,” said the.

Keki Mistry, who was vice-chairman of HDFC Ltd, and Renu Sood Karnad, who was managing director at the mortgage financier are on the board of HDFC Bank as additional and non-executive (non-independent) directors. The board has 12 directors including Jagdishan, deputy MD Kaizad Barucha, and executive directors Bhavesh Jhaveri and Rangan.

Rangan, who is an associate of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), is an expert in finance, accountancy, audit, economics, corporate governance, legal and regulatory compliance, risk management and strategic thinking.

He has experience in the housing finance and real estate sector and has worked in international consulting assignments in Ghana and the Maldives.

HDFC Bank reshuffled portfolios of senior managers in October. Arvind Kapil, who was group head for retail assets, was given the mortgage portfolio inherited following the merger with HDFC Ltd.