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‘Our challenge now is how to scale, and for relevance’: New Kotak Mahindra CEO Ashok Vaswani
Vaswani, who succeeded Kotak Mahindra Bank founder Uday Kotak as its MD and CEO, took charge earlier this month.
In his maiden public appearance as the new MD and CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, veteran banker Ravi Vaswani said on Saturday that moving forward, the challenge for the bank would be ‘how to scale,’ and to ‘scale for relevance.’
“The challenge in the (Kotak) story from here on is how we scale. Scale not just for the sake of it, but for relevance,” Vaswani said during a post-earnings call.
He then explained his ‘scale’ remark, and mentioned that the Mumbai-based financial services company has a ‘very wide’ platform.
“The challenge is really going to be the identification of 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 do that is going to be very important,” he stressed during the call.
The Kotak leader, who took charge earlier this month, further acknowledged that he is still ‘familiarising’ himself with the market-savvy private lender, founded by his predecessor, Uday Kotak, who stepped down in September last year.
“I am very cognizant about the kind of time we live in and the amount of volatility that we have seen over the last four to five years, which is unprecedented,” he remarked.
Vaswani also spoke about the company's strategy, as well as his future plans as MD and CEO. “It's only 12 working days. I will come back with a detailed plan and priorities soon. A fantastic platform, the bank is in great shape. It is really about how we grow it faster,” he said.
