Naren joined ICICI Prudential AMC in October 2004.

At ICICI Prudential AMC, Naren oversees the equity investments across the Mutual Fund,Portfolio Management Services (PMS) and International Advisory Business . He is instrumental in overall equity investment strategy development.

Naren has an overall outstanding and rich experience of over 20 years in almost all spectrum of the financial services industry ranging from investment banking, Fund Management, Equity Research, and stock broking operations. His core competency lies in being involved in the entire gamut of equity market space with extensive knowledge of Indian equities and the economy .

 

After obtaining a B. Tech degree from IIT Chennai, Naren finished MBA in finance from IIM Kolkota and worked with various financial services companies like Refco Sify Securities India Pvt. Ltd., HDFC Securities Ltd. and Yoha Securities in various positions prior to joining ICICI Prudential AMC.

Naren is passionate about equity markets and has an obvious interest in trick-taking card game bridge.

Chaitanya joined ICICI Prudential AMC in September 2002.

Chaitanya currently manages thirteen funds viz. ICICI Prudential Flexible Income Plan, ICICI Prudential Equity & Derivatives Fund, ICICI Prudential Blended Plan A, ICICI Prudential Blended Plan B, ICICI Prudential Fixed Maturity Plans, ICICI Prudential Interval Fund, ICICI Prudential Liquid Plan, ICICI Prudential Floating Rate Plan, ICICI Prudential Long Term Floating Rate Plan, ICICI Prudential Short Term Plan, ICICI Prudential Sweep Plan, ICICI Prudential Real Estate Securities Fund and ICICI Prudential S.M.A.R.T. (Structure Methodology Aiming at Returns over Tenure) Fund.

Chaitanya has an overall work experience of around over 14 years. His core competency lies in credit analysis and efficient portfolio management. His efficiency in fund management also won him the title of India’s Most Astute Bond Investor by Asset Magazine for the year 2007.

Chaitanya holds a MBA from IMI Delhi. Prior to joining ICICI Prudential AMC he was with Jardine Fleming AMC Pvt Ltd.

Chaitanya loves reading. He also has a keen interest in golf and is working towards mastering the game.

Mrs. Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO – ICICI Bank.

Ms. Chanda Kochhar is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICIBank Limited. She began her career with ICICI as a Management Trainee in 1984 and has thereon successfully risen through the ranks by handling multidimensional assignments and heading all the major functions in the Bank at various points in time.

In 1993 when ICICI decided to enter commercial banking, she was deputed to ICICI Bank as a part of the core team to set up the bank. When ICICI set up the Infrastructure Industry Group in 1996 to create dedicated industry expertise in the areas of Power, Telecom and Transportation sector, she was handpicked and made incharge of the Infrastructure Industry Group. Further in 1998, when ICICI created the ”Major Client Group“ to handle the relationships with the top 200 clients of ICICI, she was promoted as General Manager and was made the head of the Major Clients Group. In the year 1999 she simultaneously started handling the strategy and E-commerce divisions of ICICI.

In July 2000, she was chosen to head the Retail finance division of ICICI and has been instrumental in scaling up the business. In April 2001, she was promoted as an Executive Director, heading the retail business in the Bank. Having joined it during its nascent stage, her strategic thinking and skills to convert challenges into opportunities ensured that within a short span of around 5 years ICICI Bank emerged as the largest retail financer in India. In the process of transforming a small bank into the largest private sector bank in the country, within a decade of its inception, the various steps taken by her also shaped the retail finance industry in India.

 

In April 2006, she was appointed as the Deputy Managing Director with responsibility for both Corporate and Retail banking business of ICICI Bank and from October 2006 to October 2007, she handled the International and Corporate businesses of ICICI. Once again under her leadership, International banking was the fastest growing businesses within the Bank aiming to cater to the cross-border needs of clients.

In October 2007, she was appointed as the Joint Managing Director & CFO. She was heading the Corporate Centre, was the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and was also the official spokesperson for ICICI Bank. In addition to finance, planning and communications; her responsibilities included the global treasury, principal investments & trading, risk management and legal functions. She was also responsible for day-to-day guidance and administrative matters relating to the compliance and internal audit functions.

Awards

Under the leadership of Ms. Kochhar ICICI Bank had won The Asian Banker - “Best Retail Bank in India“award for five consecutive years from the year 2001 to 2005. As recognition of her contribution to establish ICICI Bank as a leading player in the banking industry Ms. Kochhar has also been:

• Ranked 25th in the Fortune’s List of Most Powerful Women in Business, 2008
• Featured in the list of 25 most powerful women leaders in Business Today, 2008
• Selected as ‘Rising Star Award’ for Global Awards 2006 by Retail Banker International
• Awarded Business Woman of the Year 2005 by The Economic Times of India
• Selected as Retail Banker of the Year 2004 (Asia-Pacific region) by The Asian Banker from amongst prominent retail bankers in the Asia Pacific region

 

Education & Certifications

Born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, she joined Jaihind College in Mumbai for a Bachelors Degree in Arts and after graduating in 1982, completed her MBA and Cost Accountancy. She did her Masters in Management Studies (Finance) from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai and topped her batch and received the Wockhardt Gold Medal for Excellence in Management Studies. In Cost Accountancy, she received the J. N. Bose Gold Medal for highest marks in that year.

Barry Stowe is Chief Executive of Prudential Corporation Asia.

He is responsible for an extensive network of over 50 life insurance and fund management operations spanning 13 diverse markets. With 450,000 dedicated staff and agents, Prudential’s Asia business offers a wide range of savings, protection and investment products tailored to meet the needs of local customers, in addition to consumer finance sector in Vietnam. Prudential is Asia’s leading Europe-based life insurer, with over £34.3 billion in assets under management (as of 30 June 2008), and is also a major player in Asia’s fund management sector.

Prior to joining Prudential in October 2006, Barry was President of Accident & Health Worldwide for AIG Life Companies, overseeing more than 100 operations across six continents. Under his leadership, AIG became the global market leader in Accident & Health insurance, leveraging rapidly-evolving dynamics between consumers, governments and the medical industry to maintain a vigorous CAGR of 24%. Barry was also pivotal in building the Accident & Health unit into one of AIG’s most profitable businesses, accounting for over 30% of AIG Life Companies’ total earnings by 2005.

Barry has considerable experience in Asia, having spent three years as the Regional Head for AIG Accident & Health in Southeast Asia before his appointment to the Hong Kong-based role of President, Accident & Health Worldwide.

In addition to his eleven years with AIG, Barry’s career in the insurance industry includes his tenure as President & CEO of Nisus, a subsidiary of the Pan American Life Insurance Company, and several leadership positions at Willis Corroon, a global risk management and insurance brokerage based in the U.S.

Barry is actively involved with a number of charities and community organisations, with a focus on the needs of children.

Academic Career

 

Mr. Suresh Kumar graduated from the Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics of the University of Bombay with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree in 1971. He completed a post-graduate investment management programme conducted jointly by the Stanford University and the London School of Business. He also completed an Advanced Management Programme at the Columbia Business School.

 

Achievements/Eminent Positions held

 

• Senior treasury and general management positions in a Government of Dubai project.
• Management positions in the banking sector in India, in the U. K. and in the (West Coast) U.S.
• Member of the senior Management of Emirates Bank Group since 1989.
• Member on the Board of a number of offshore private equity firms.
• More recently, he has assumed the role of a Chief Mentor and Group Director in Emirates NBD; with responsibilities for a number of organic and inorganic initiatives.
• Recipient of the Rotary International Scholarship (1977) tenable in California (U.S.A.)
• Recipient of Lord Aldington Banking Fellowship (1978)
• Fellow of the Indian Institute of Bankers
• Member of the regional Chief Executive Forum of the Institute of International Finance (IIF), Washington D.C.

 

Directorships in other Companies

 

• Independent Director on the Board of ICICI International Ltd
• Chairman of the Board of Fedbank Financial Services Ltd.
• Non-executive director on the Board of Federal Bank Ltd.
• Chief Executive Officer of Emirates NBD Capital Ltd (DIFC) and Emirates Financial Services (EFS) PSC.

 

Others

 

He writes regularly for the English and Arabic newspapers in the UAE, has addressed several symposia on financial and non-financial subjects in print, television and other media.

Mr. Thacker is the Managing Partner of V. P. Thacker & Co.

Mr. Vijay Thacker is a Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant and has been in professional practice for over 22 years. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Mr. Thacker’s professional skills and experience cover diverse facets including Audit and assurance, Business consulting, Corporate Law and taxation, Hotel and tourism consulting, Franchise consulting and Consulting for Family and Owner managed businesses.

He is also a speaker and paper writer at international and domestic conferences.

Mr. Dileep C. Choksi a Chartered Accountant by profession has over 35 years of experience.

His areas of specialization include tax planning and structuring for domestic and international clients, including expatriates, finalizing collaborations and joint ventures, corporate restructuring and analyzing tax impact of various instruments. He has advised some of India’s largest business houses on mergers and acquisitions and multinational companies on cross border structuring and acquisition.

Mr. Choksi has contributed various papers on mergers and acquisitions, valuation of business enterprises, company law, corporate governance and taxation. He has assisted in the preparation of the prominent book “Kanga and Palkhiwala - The Law and Practice of income Tax” Eight Edition by late Mr. N. A. Palkhiwala and Mr. B.A. Palkhivala.

He has been an ex-visiting faculty member of the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Bankers Training College, and Reserve Bank of India. He was earlier on the Taxation Committee of the Indian Merchant Chambers.

Mr. Choksi is on the Board of several leading companies including ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited, ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Limited, NSE.IT Limited, and State Bank of India. He was also on the Advisory Board of foreign banks as well as Ex-Chairman of Banque Nationale De Paris, Mumbai.

Mr. N.S. Kannan is the Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of ICICI Bank. In addition to Finance, Taxation and Communications, his responsibilities include Compliance, Internal Audit, Corporate Legal and Global Treasury operations.

Prior to the current assignment, Mr. Kannan was the Executive Director of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company. He looked after the Corporate Centre including the Finance and accounts functions, Investor/analyst relations, Investment Management, Corporate Strategy, Corporate Communications, Human Resources and Business Intelligence. Prior to shifting to ICICI Prudential, Mr. Kannan was the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ICICI Bank.

Mr. Kannan has been with the ICICI group for over 18 years. He joined the ICICI group in 1991 as a project officer. During his tenure at ICICI group, he has handled project finance operations, infrastructure financing, structured finance and treasury operations.

Mr. Kannan is a postgraduate in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore with a gold medal for best all-round performance. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst from the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India and an Honours graduate in Mechanical Engineering.

Mr. M.S. Parthasarathy’s professional experience and knowledge, gained over five decades, span different areas of banking and finance, commercial, central, and export banking, development financing, private equity and mutual funds.

After short stints with The United Commercial Bank Ltd. (1958-63) and the Reserve Bank of India - Department of Banking Operations (1963-1966), Mr. Parthasarathy moved to the Industrial Development Bank of India (1966-1981), where he was closely associated with the introduction of direct term-financing of exports and, finally, as a Deputy General Manager, was overseeing project appraisal. IDBI seconded him in 1981 to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), where, eventually, as a division chief (1991-95), he was responsible for the Bank’s financial and private-sector operations in China, Indonesia, Thailand, and Indochina countries. He helped launch the Bank’s Singapore-based private-sector-financing affiliate, Asian Finance and Investment Corporation Ltd. (AFIC)(1989-1991), where he directed operations as Senior Vice-President.

Mr. M.S. Parthasarthy represented ADB/AFIC on the boards of Bangkok Expressway and Malaysian Equity Fund. Returning to India in 1995, he joined the boards of Federal Bank Ltd. and Sundaram Asset Management Co. Ltd.(1996-2004). During 1996-1999, he was an advisor to the Daiwa Far East and Eastern Siberia Fund, sponsored by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) with Japanese assistance. Currently, he is an independent director of Sundaram BNP Paribas Home Finance Ltd.

Mr. Parthasarthy holds a first-class commerce honours degree from the Madras University, and is an associate member of the Indian and British institutes of bankers, securing top spots in their examinations. He is a fellow of the World Bank Economic Development Institute.

Mr. Parthasarthy has authored/edited books on banking and negotiable instruments law, and contributed occasional articles on banking, law, finance, corporate governance, and taxation to professional journals and business newspapers.

Mr. Gopinath is a career banker who continues to be associated with the banking sector as a Director of Bank of India. He joined Bank of India as a Probationary officer in 1970 and served them for 25 years, including 5 years at their New York Branch. He gained valuable exposure to all facets of banking including Treasury, International Banking, Merchant Banking, Retail Banking, Rural Banking, HR etc. At New York Branch he served as Vice President – Treasury, Vice President -Operations and Comptroller of US Operations consisting of three branches.

In 1995 he was invited by ICICI Bank Limited to join them as Senior Vice President in charge of the Mumbai Zone which accounted for 90% of the business of the bank which was just about 6 months old. He was part of the initial senior management team which stabilised and grew the bank. He organised the Retail Banking Group apart from taking the initiative to centralise operations which helped the bank to grow rapidly in a cost effective manner. The NPA management group too was set up by him. He is credited with managing the smooth merger of Bank of Madura with ICICI Bank Limited within a brief period of 10 months despite the merger process starting with protests by the Employees Union of bank of Madura. Developing a scalable model of Micro Finance, namely the Partnership Model, which has been adopted by all banks and MFIs is another notable achievement.

In 2005 after he retired from ICICI Bank Limited as Senior General Manager, Mr. Gopinath was invited by Bank of India to join their Board. His contributions during the first term of 3 years were well appreciated by the Bank and he was reappointed for a second term of 3 years in Oct 2008. He has served and continues to serve on many board level committees including Audit Committee, IT Committee, and Credit Committee etc.

Mr. Gopinath has served as a Nominee Director of ICICI Bank Limited on the boards of ICICI Home Finance Ltd, ICICI Webtrade Ltd and Stock Holding Corporation Ltd. He is the Chairman Loyalty Solutions and Research Ltd. He is also associated with DISHA, the credit counselling agency supported by ICICI Bank Limited as a member of its Advisory Committee.

He was associated with the setting up of Institute of Finance Banking and Insurance, a joint venture of ICICI Bank Limited and NIIT, which was started to provide well trained staff to the finance sector and at the same time improve the employability of fresh graduates. IFBI has provided over 6000 well trained personnel to various banks, insurance companies and NBFCs. Mr. Gopinath was responsible for developing the syllabi and course ware and he continues to be an advisor to the institute.

The association with IFBI prompted Mr. Gopinath to publish a text book on banking, titled “Banking Principles and Operations”, nearly 4000 copies of which got sold in one year. The second edition of the book will be published in Nov 09. In a review of the book published in the Journal of Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (IIBF) the reviewer had commended the book as follows, “Since M L Tannan’s publication, Banking Law and Practice, there has been no such exhaustive book on the subject.”M L Tannan’s book was first published in 1926 and revised from time to time.

Mr. Gopinath has provided advice on organisational and HR development to Bank Turan Alem of Kazaksthan, Timir Bank of Kazaksthan, Federal Bank and ICICI Bank Limited.

He started his career as a Tutor in Loyola College, from where he got his B Com degree in 1968. He served them for two years teaching B Com and Pre University classes.

Mr. Gopinath is a B Com, MBA by qualification and is also a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB) He lives in Mumbai.

A Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales, Keki Dadiseth joined Hindustan Lever Limited in India in 1973 as Manager in the Audit Department. His tenure in the company included a three-year secondment to Unilever plc in London (1984-87), where he held senior financial and commercial positions.

On his return to India in 1987, Keki joined the Board of Hindustan Lever and, until he became Chairman in 1996, headed several businesses (Detergents and Personal Products) and functions (Personnel and Acquisitions & Mergers activities) for the Group in India.

Keki was appointed Director on the Board of Unilever plc and Unilever NV in May 2000 and a Member of the Executive Committee. On January 1, 2001, he took over as Director, Home and Personal Care, responsible for the HPC business of Unilever worldwide. He retired from Unilever in May 2005.

In India, Keki is closely associated with various industry, educational, management and medical bodies. He is a Trustee of the Ratan Tata Trust and a Member of the Managing Committee, Breach Candy Hospital Trust. He is on the Boards of The Indian Hotels Company Limited, Britannia Industries, Nicholas Piramal, Siemens, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential Asset Management Trust and Godrej Properties Limited. He is also a Director on the Board of the Indian Business School. He is a Member of the International Advisory Board of Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. and Fleishman-Hillard Inc., a Non-Executive Director of Prudential plc, Non-Executive Chairman of Omnicom India, a Member of the Senior Advisory Board of Oliver Wyman Limited, U.K. and a Member of the International Advisory Board of Goldman Sachs – with special focus on South Asia.

Mr. Sandeep Batra is the Group Compliance Officer & Company Secretary of ICICI Bank. He is responsible for Regulatory compliance for the ICICI Group including its banking and non-banking subsidiaries and overseas offices. He moved into this assignment in November 2006.

He is also responsible for Internal Controls over Financial Reporting (SOX).

ICICI Bank is the largest private sector bank with operations in 19 countries and has subsidiaries operating in the Life and General Insurance, Securities, Asset Management and Venture Funding businesses.

Prior to moving to ICICI Bank, Mr. Batra was working with ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited since its inception in September 2000. As the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the company, he had overall responsibility of finance, strategic planning, taxation, compliance and administration. In addition, he also supervised the human resources function. As a founding member of the Management Committee, he played a key role in development of the strategy and its deployment over the years as well as the set up of the governance structure of the organization.

Previous experience includes being the Financial Controller of Citicorp Maruti Finance Ltd. and Citicorp Credit Services Ltd.

Industry Associations

• Member of the Insurance and Pension Committee of FICCI and provided key support the Life Insurance Council relating to regulatory /taxation changes for the industry during the tenure with ICICI Prudential Life.
• Member of the Insurance Committee of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (2002-03).
• Presently a member of the Secretarial Standards committee of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

Academic Career and Awards

• Chartered Accountant (1987) - All India Rank Holder.
• Company Secretary (1993).
• Awarded a National Scholarship by NCERT at an all India Competition (1983).