Exclusive: Ajith Kumar K K, Madhav Nair among names shortlisted for Dhanlaxmi Bank CEO post

Dhanlaxmi Bank has shortlisted five names for the CEO post.

The race for the chief executive post of Thrissur-based Dhanlaxmi Bank is entering the last lap with five names shortlisted post interviews and sent to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the regulator’s scrutiny.

Among the shortlisted candidates are Ajith Kumar K K, who is currently working as a senior executive at Federal Bank, and Madhav Nair, who is currently working as country head and CEO of Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait (BBK), according to two people familiar with the development. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to Moneycontrol.

According to the people quoted above, a total of five names have been shortlisted after the interview. These names are now under the scrutiny of the RBI. Interestingly, Ajith Kumar was part of the final list of candidates for the CEO post on two earlier occasions also.

Kumar, currently serving as the President and Chief Human Resource Officer at Federal Bank, is a veteran banker with over three decades of experience in the industry across verticals.  During his tenure, Kumar has worked across SME, commercial banking verticals among other departments.

Madhav Nair took over as the country head of BBK in August last year. Nair too is an experienced banker with stints across Mashreq Bank, Standard Chartered and HDFC Bank. Nair has experience both in India and middle east over decades.

The term of the current Dhanlaxmi CEO Shivan JK is ending January 29. Prior to joining Dhanlaxmi Bank, Shivan, who has over three and half decades of experience in banking, has handled various areas in commercial banking at SBI. Shivan has headed corporate banking, international banking, forex operations and was also involved in retail advances and agriculture credit in SBI.

Shivan retired as Chief General Manager of Stressed Assets Resolution Group of SBI. At SBI, Shivan was retail branch head for six years in Kerala in rural and urban centres of the bank. Besides,  Shivan has also handled sectoral teams handling stressed accounts in the infrastructure and commercial real estate and then in the Airlines, Telecom, Trading, Gem & Jewellery, Food Processing, and edible oil processing.

Earlier, Dhanlaxmi Bank shareholders had ousted former CEO Sunil Gurbaxani in the bank's Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 30 September, 2020. On September 26, the RBI had cleared the name of KN Madhusoodanan as a part-time chairman of Dhanlaxmi Bank after a period of 21 months during which the company was without a chairman, following the resignation of G Subramonia Iyer in December 2021 for personal reasons.

Iyer had cited certain urgent and emergent domestic and personal reasons and there were no other material reasons for his resignation, the bank said in 2021. In September last year, Sridhar Kalyanasundaram, one of the independent directors of Kerala-based Dhanlaxmi Bank, had resigned citing multiple issues in the bank's operations and internal battle within the Board, according to a communication from the bank to exchanges on September 17.

Kalyanasundaram, in his resignation letter to the Board of directors, has highlighted multiple issues, including lack of support from the board, issues related to a rights issue plan, capital enhancement plan, conduct of the bank's board, probity and lack of consensus on the various 'whistle-blower' issues raised to the Directors and unethical conduct of bank's business among other issues.