Friday, December 19, 2008

Banking industry giant Kamath to hang his boots next year

There are many ways to describe ICICI Bank CEO and Managing Director Kundapur Vaman Kamath -- boring is definitely not one of them.

The gentle giant, who will hang his boots on April 30, 2009, will be remembered for making interest rates sound interesting and the otherwise 'boring' banking profession cool.

Kamath's success is the envy of bankers everywhere, but his feat of taking a small bank and turning it into the country's second largest lender is hard to match.

It was no big surprise that Kamath, born in Mangalore in the December of 1947, chose banking as his profession. Mangaloreans have made a name for themselves in this field, with at least five banks founded by people from the region.

But IIM-educated Kamath ventured beyond where his predecessors treaded and made access to credit a real possibility for customers from different walks of life.

After graduating from IIM-Ahmedabad in 1971, he joined the erstwhile Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India in the project finance division and dabbled in leasing, venture capital and credit rating fields.

In 1998, he moved to the Asian Development Bank, Manila, where he worked on many projects in developing countries before returning to ICICI as its Managing Director and CEO in 1996.

He presided over the expansion of ICICI Bank, which grew rapidly through a series of acquisition in the late 90s.

In a country where the only banker people generally remember without difficulty is the Reserve Bank Governor, Kamath made a mark for himself

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