Tamal Bandopadhyay: The highly rated CEO

BACSTAGE

Rajagopalan Ravimohan

One fine morning, sometime in the mid-1990s, employees at Crisil Managing Director and CEO Rajagopalan Ravimohan's secretariat found their boss's moustache missing.

The reason: with his moustache on, Ravimohan could not cuddle his one-year-old son. So, he shaved it off the previous night. That's quintessential Ravimohan "" known for his on-the-spot decisions.

US rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has revised its open offer for Crisil and is willing to cough up Rs 323 crore to acquire 75 per cent stake in it. That's a tribute to 48-year-old Ravimohan.

Crisil was set up by Pradip Shah in 1987 but Ravimohan helped widen its canvas by going beyond rating, floating advisory and other businesses, including market research.

He can undoubtedly be called the architect of the Crisil's success story. Today, Crisil is one of the top five credit-rating agencies in the world, having rated over 2,500 debt instruments.

Thanks to Ravimohan's efforts, people now know how to figure out risk in every segment and mitigate it. For instance, a home buyer now knows which builder to trust, thanks to Crisil's rating of builders.

While Shah built Crisil on institutional businesses, Ravimohan took the rating agency to the masses by taking the retail route. He was the first to conduct an investors' conference in vernacular languages at regional stock exchanges.

A Tamil Brahmin from Delhi, Ravimohan did his BE in chemical engineering from Regional Engineering College at Trichy and post-graduation in business administration from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

He started his career in 1979 with the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (the former avatar of ICICI Bank).

ICICI Chairman Narayan Vaghul found in him an executive with natural leadership qualities who could build an institution. No wonder, he was chosen to head the OTC Exchange of India (OTCEI) "" the country's first electronic stock exchange "" in 1990.

In 1994, when Shah quit, Ravimohan was Vaghul's natural choice to head Crisil.

"That was a difficult time when another rating agency started giving competition to Crisil. Ravimohan was concerned about competition but never worried. He has the right attitude," says Vaghul who has seen him closely working with project finance and merchant banking divisions of the former financial institution.

Under Ravimohan's stewardship, Crisil grew inorganically and diversified into several fields leveraging its existing businesses. The first major move was into advisory and information businesses where it has built up a strong franchise in energy and infrastructure sector consulting.

The information services business has been boosted by the acquisition of Infac (now Cris Infac, a subsidiary of Crisil). It also set up Global Data Services of India Ltd "" a specialised company for providing company data and analysis "" and Cris-Risc, a subsidiary for providing information and related services.

S&P first entered into a strategic alliance with Crisil in 1995, and at the next stage, picked up close to 10 per cent stake in 1996-97. The open offer is a logical culmination of the process because globally S&P does not hold minority stake in any rating agency.

Crisil's employees swear by Ravimohan. Shah had offered them ESOPs but Ravimohan went one step ahead and made profit-sharing a variable component of their salary.

Even those who have left the Crisil fold for McKinsey, JP Morgan and other Indian corporations, get an invitation from Ravimohan for an annual bash. These employees even run an intra-net on their former boss.

However, Ravimohan's critics find that his choice of people from the industry who make a lateral entry into Crisil is often faulty.

"He trusts his employees and gives them complete freedom to run the show. There have been occasions when senior executives have taken advantage of that. Quite a few appointments at high positions are mishaps. But he has the uncanny ability to spot talent and groom them. Once he identifies a junior colleague, he puts him on the fast track. He has never gone wrong on that," says a Crisil insider.

Vaghul says each time Ravimohan got an offer from the industry, he convinced him to stay back as "such offers can keep on coming" while loyalty always pays.

With the world's biggest rating agency readying to picking up a majority stake in Crisil, its CEO will never regret staying back.