Poonawalla Fincorp Limited (Formerly Magma Fincorp Limited), has revamped, and further strengthened its leadership team. As a part of its transformation exercise Poonawalla Fincorp has brought in various industry leaders through a string of top executive hirings across the functions. Consequent to the capital raise of Rs 3,456 Crore in May ‘21, the company is now part of Poonawalla Group with majority stake owned by Rising Sun Holdings Private Limited, a company owned and controlled by Mr. Adar Poonawalla. The company has also undergone rebranding recently and introduced its new identity of “P” which stands for Passion, Principles, Purpose, People and Possibilities. As a part of strengthening the team there are leaders who have joined to lead critical functions like Credit, HR, Analytics, Credit Risk monitoring, Strategy, and Business.
CA Abhay Bhutada, Managing Director, Poonawalla Fincorp Limited remarked “It is great to see our leadership team getting strengthened across different verticals in line with our philosophy of making it a professionally run company with a strong governance culture. We want to rebuild the organization with a very solid footing and firmly believe that the right talent is an essential ingredient for the same. We have a new but a highly experienced and talented management team, having onboarded the best of the industry talent with rich, varied, and perse experience. This talent will definitely be a pillar for our growth journey.”
Rajendra Tathare, with more than two and a half decades of experience in credit risk and policy formulation has joined Poonawalla as its Chief Credit Officer. He was last associated with Fullerton India as Head of Credit Underwriting and spent almost 15 years with them. Prior to that Rajendra has worked with HDFC Bank and brings in a strong knowledge of retail lending across various asset classes. Commenting on his appointment Rajendra said, “I am excited to be part of this journey under reputed Poonawalla brand and will endeavor to build a strong credit culture by leveraging technology and embracing digital.”
The Human Resources function gets strengthened with joining of Manish Kumar as a Group CHRO. Manish brings with him vast experience across BFSI space with players like RBS, IDFC and ICICI bank. He has earlier driven transformations and will be driving people management for the group. Manish said, “The focus on building the right culture to create a bedrock for growth is going to be the single most important thing in the transformation exercise.”
Rashmi Prasad joined as Head Analytics. With rich experience of more than 16 years, he was last heading Analytics for Tata Capital and has previously been associated with players like Bajaj Finance and L&T Finance. Rashmi said “We are building a data driven approach to our business focusing on consumer and MSME segment. We will create unique customer experiences and a strong differentiator in the market by optimally using the Data sciences and Analytics.”
Mitul Budhbhatti joined the company for Credit & Risk Monitoring from CARE Ratings where he worked for more than 15 years managing the BFSI ratings. Commenting on his appointment Mitul said, “Having seen the sector very closely from the other side, entry of Poonawalla into NBFC space in such a large way has changed the way the sector is looked at and we are all set to build an institution on strong fundamentals.”
The company has appointed Surya V. as its Chief Strategy Officer. He has more than two decades of experience in BFSI segment and was last associated with ICICI Bank. Surya said, “There is a huge opportunity in front of us. With strong brand like Poonawalla and a strong capital base we will work towards delivering value to all our stakeholders with focus on trust, transparency and continuous innovation.”
Indiresh Phaltankar will lead company’s foray into the Loan against Property (LAP) business as Business Head for this product. An ISB graduate with over two decades of experience, he was previously associated with HSBC and Aditya Birla Finance Limited. Indiresh commented, “This is an incredible opportunity to set up a strong LAP business from scratch and I look forward to working very closely with the team to build a strong customer value proposition.”