Om Prakash Bhatt, chairman of State Bank of India (SBI), a bank with 134 million customers and more than 10,000 branches, mumbled that he found my title of “senior” editor “intimidating”. The softly-spoken SBI-lifer, who recently spearheaded a campaign to recruit 20,000 new staff, may be self-effacing but he is responsible for a brave attempt to shake up a behemoth in one of the world’s most exciting economies.
The 57-year-old, who joined the bank in 1972 after completing his MA in physics and English literature, saw SBI lose its cachet as the employer of choice when the Indian banking sector was transformed with the arrival of ICICI and other private sector banks. He and the other fast-track managers sat around discussing what needed to be done.
