Produced by: Anwesha Madhukalya
Designed by: Mohsin Shaikh
Banker extraordinaire and founder of Kotak Mahindra, Uday Kotak, spoke about whether son Jay Kotak will take on his father’s mantle. In a recent conversation at India Today Conclave Mumbai 2023, Uday Kotak opened up about his son’s prospects at the bank
The conversations around Uday Kotak’s successor come after the ace banker stepped down, after 38 years, from his role of CEO and MD of Kotak Mahindra Bank, effective September 1. Dipak Gupta, full-time director of the bank has taken on the duties and responsibilities of MD & CEO
All eyes are now, naturally, on Jay Kotak, who joined the Mumbai-headquartered bank seven years ago. He serves as the Vice President and co-head of the lender’s digital banking solution, Kotak811
Uday Kotak during the India Today Conclave acknowledged that “kids have a mind of their own” in today’s times. “He decided to come back (from abroad) and work in the bank like any other professional and it is up to him. If he performs, he may have an opportunity,” said Kotak
Uday Kotak called up Jay Kotak to give him some sound advice, in what he calls a rare occurrence. Speaking with Nikhil Kamath in his podcast ‘WTF is with Nikhil Kamath’ episode ‘EdTech What’s Broken What’s Next?’, Jay Kotak said that Uday Kotak called him to ask him to come back to India and not necessarily for Kotak Mahindra
“My father called me – and it is rare that he should do something like this – and said ‘I really think you should come back for India, not necessarily for Kotak’, because the opportunity and the way this country is changing is once in a century or more. Over the last five or six centuries this happened only six or seven times. I took that plunge and I am glad I did,” said Jay Kotak
Jay Kotak said that he never truly understood how big the business had become till he came back from the undergrad in the US in 2012. “I never really worked in Kotak till I came back from my MBA. Even then I wasn’t really sure that this was my calling,” said Jay Kotak. His father then made that ‘rare’ call
Jay Kotak had completed his college in Columbia University, after which he came back to India and worked for a couple of years, mostly consulting and investment banking, but not at Kotak. He then completed his MBA from Harvard University in 2017. He has been in India since, and joined the lender
Jay Kotak said that he spent a couple of years doing capital markets “which was the original strength and original business of the Kotak Group”. He then moved into the consumer and B2C segments
Jay Kotak says that Kotak811 is the product of demonetisation – hence ‘811’. “I can’t take credit for Kotak bank, I can take credit for a little bit of Kotak811,” he said about the fully-regulated digital bank or fintech, which contributes 70-75% of the total bank account that Kotak now opens