Ashok Vaswani, the new MD&CEO of Kotak Bank, brings a clear strategic focus to the forefront, centered on scaling up the business, securing a significant market share in various business segments, and exploring growth opportunities, both organically and inorganically.
“The challenge in the (Kotak) story from here on is how we scale. Scale not just for the sake of it but the scale for relevance," said Vaswani.
While explaining the 'scale' remark, Vaswani mentioned that the bank has a very wide platform. "The challenge is really going to be the identification of those areas where we want to have and create a disproportionate impact and grow aggressively to scale the business. The financial services industry is a scale business, and how we scale is going to be very important," he explained.
When asked about tapping into inorganic growth opportunities, Vaswani stated that the bank is well-capitalized. "We are looking at all kinds of opportunities. We are not shutting the doors on anything. We are ready to take advantage of opportunities, both organic and inorganic," he said.
Three weeks into the new role, Vaswani is still familiarizing himself with the market-savvy private bank nurtured by founder Uday Kotak for two decades. "I am very cognizant of the kind of time we live in and the amount of volatility that we have seen over the last 4-5 years, which is unprecedented," said Vaswani.
Over four decades, Vaswani's banking career unfolded across various continents, including the UK, Africa, Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East. He worked for the US-based Citi Group and Barclays in the UK. In June last year, he made another strategic move, becoming a part of a US-based financial AI technology company, Pagaya. That has his last immediate assignment before joining Kotak Bank.
Wearing a black suit and tie, Vaswani made a 5-minute opening remark over a Zoom call, talking about the global macros, geopolitical developments, and encouraging Indian macros, especially the digital stack.
Vaswani stayed away from answering operational-related questions. On Kotak's strategy and future plan as MD&CEO, the stock answer was his limited 17 days at the bank. "It's only 12 working days. I will come back with a detailed plan and priorities soon," he promised, adding that Kotak is in great shape. "It is a fantastic platform. It is really about how do we grow it faster," he added.
Before exiting, Uday Kotak had initiated a new strategy and put together a team to guide the bank's transformation into a tech-savvy institution by focusing on building customer excellence similar to that of Amazon. The new strategy has three main parts. First, it wants to make the customer experience as good as Amazon's. Second, it's all about making things better for employees by giving them the right tools and systems. And third, there's a big focus on getting more work done efficiently.
Vaswani, a graduate of the same Mumbai college attended by Kotak, will benefit from the support and mentorship of the bank's founder, Kotak, who is still on the board.
This unique advantage sets him apart from many new CEOs who took the helm at other private banks such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and IndusInd Bank, where the start CEOs made an exit after retirement or otherwise.
Also read: Kotak Mahindra Bank Q3 results: Profit at Rs 3,005 crore; NIM at 5.22%. Key highlights
Also read: ‘India transforming from nation of savers to investors’: Uday Kotak on the financial sector