Both K. V. Kamath and Deepak Parekh won’t be around as ceos in 2010. Manish K. Pandey, Deepak Ranjan Patra and Angshuman Paul talk to people in the financial services industry to compare the legacies of the titans
Both started their careers when India Inc. was reeling under a tidal wave of nationalisation and ‘hard’ socialism of the early 1970s that all but smothered entrepreneurship in the country. Both belong to ‘communities’ that have acquired considerable fame for their entrepreneurial skills; one is from Mangalore while the other is of course a Gujarati. You could say that one of them had banking in his genes; his grandfather and father were both bankers. The other ‘discovered’ himself through banking. One was already part of India’s ‘elite’ while growing up, did his chartered accountancy from London and started his career with Ernst & Young in New York. The other came from far off Mangalore from a middle class family and chased his aspirational El Dorado by pursuing an MBA in IIM, Ahmedabad after an engineering degree from a government college. While the first was flying high in New York, the other quietly joined a public sector development lending institution called ICICI. A few years later, even as the man from Mangalore was gradually moving up the public sector ladder, his contemporary was persuaded by a maternal uncle to come and work for an Indian organisation. The maternal uncle happened to be the founder of HDFC.
Of course you have guessed the identities of the two by now. The man from Mangalore is none other than K. V. Kamath, who retired this year as the Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank. The chartered accountant who went on to work for his uncle is Deepak Parekh who is all set to step down as the Executive Chairman of HDFC. For the last two decades, the two have towered over the financial services industry in India like titans. There is not a shadow of doubt that both Parekh and Kamath have been unparalleled game changers and that their exit leaves a void that no individual can yet fill. Sure there is Chanda Kochhar who replaced Kamath at ICICI; sure there is Keki Mistry who will replace Parekh. Then there is Shikha Sharma, formerly of ICICI who is now duplicating her former employer’s unbridled aggression at Axis Bank. Then there is – according to many – the unheralded Aditya Puri who heads HDFC Bank and also the understated Renu Karnad, who will now be the Managing Director of HDFC. But virtually everyone in the financial services industry agrees that Kamath and Parekh are in a league of their own. There is a complete consensus in the industry that the two have left corporate legacies and institutions that will endure for a long, long time.
Both started their careers when India Inc. was reeling under a tidal wave of nationalisation and ‘hard’ socialism of the early 1970s that all but smothered entrepreneurship in the country. Both belong to ‘communities’ that have acquired considerable fame for their entrepreneurial skills; one is from Mangalore while the other is of course a Gujarati. You could say that one of them had banking in his genes; his grandfather and father were both bankers. The other ‘discovered’ himself through banking. One was already part of India’s ‘elite’ while growing up, did his chartered accountancy from London and started his career with Ernst & Young in New York. The other came from far off Mangalore from a middle class family and chased his aspirational El Dorado by pursuing an MBA in IIM, Ahmedabad after an engineering degree from a government college. While the first was flying high in New York, the other quietly joined a public sector development lending institution called ICICI. A few years later, even as the man from Mangalore was gradually moving up the public sector ladder, his contemporary was persuaded by a maternal uncle to come and work for an Indian organisation. The maternal uncle happened to be the founder of HDFC.
Of course you have guessed the identities of the two by now. The man from Mangalore is none other than K. V. Kamath, who retired this year as the Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank. The chartered accountant who went on to work for his uncle is Deepak Parekh who is all set to step down as the Executive Chairman of HDFC. For the last two decades, the two have towered over the financial services industry in India like titans. There is not a shadow of doubt that both Parekh and Kamath have been unparalleled game changers and that their exit leaves a void that no individual can yet fill. Sure there is Chanda Kochhar who replaced Kamath at ICICI; sure there is Keki Mistry who will replace Parekh. Then there is Shikha Sharma, formerly of ICICI who is now duplicating her former employer’s unbridled aggression at Axis Bank. Then there is – according to many – the unheralded Aditya Puri who heads HDFC Bank and also the understated Renu Karnad, who will now be the Managing Director of HDFC. But virtually everyone in the financial services industry agrees that Kamath and Parekh are in a league of their own. There is a complete consensus in the industry that the two have left corporate legacies and institutions that will endure for a long, long time.
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