In what is easily the most keenly awaited succession announcement, HDFC Bank’s board today finalised the names of three candidates for the top job, which will be submitted to the Reserve Bank of India for its approval.

Among these three names, two are internal and only one external candidate has been shortlisted, said a senior executive at the bank on the condition of anonymity as the names have not been made public.

Sashidhar Jagdishan and Kaizad M Bharucha are the internal candidates , and the CEO of Citi Commercial Bank Sunil Garg is the third, the source quoted above said.

Economic Times had first reported these three names as potential shortlisted candidates ahead of the board meeting on Saturday.

Another senior executive at the bank added that a preference has been given to the internal candidates over the external ones, in the order of preference finally submitted to the RBI.

The outgoing CEO & advisor to the search committee, Aditya Puri had told CNBC-TV18 in an interview earlier, “I am saying an internal candidate is good because he would know the people, he would know the system, etc. and his acceptability is higher. So when you go outside you obviously look for that exception."

HDFC Bank last year had constituted a six-member search committee to replace Puri, who turns 70 in October, hitting the maximum age limit for a bank CEO as per RBI norms.

The six member search committee comprises Chairman of the bank Shyamala Gopinath, board members Sanjiv Sachar, MD Ranganath, Sandeep Parekh, Srikanth Nadhamuni, and Renu Karnad from HDFC Ltd.

Puri is also an advisor to the search committee. In addition, the bank had also roped in international headhunting firm Egon Zehnder to assist the panel identify the right candidate.

Shashidhar Jagdishan, with over 29 years of experience, is currently the Group Head of Finance, Human Resources, Legal & Secretarial, Administration, Infrastructure, Corporate Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility. He also joined the bank around 1996 as a Manager in the Finance function, and then went on to became Business Head - Finance in 1999 and Chief Financial Officer in the year 2008.

Kaizad E Bharucha is an Executive Director on the board of HDFC Bank, and heads the Wholesale operations of the bank. He has been associated with the Bank since 1995, and covers areas of Corporate Banking, Emerging Corporate Group, Business Banking, Capital Markets & Commodities Business, Agri Lending, Investment Banking, Financial Institutions & Government Business and Department for Special Operations.

Sunil Garg, has been the CEO of Citi Commercial Bank since 2011, and has beeen associated with Citi bank for over 30 years now.

Also read: Easy to call banks lazy, but one needs to ask why aren't they lending

First Published:Apr 18, 2020 8:44 PM IST