Business Today - Who's Next

As blue-chip CEOs like K.V. Kamath, Deepak Parekh, and Shiv Nadar, among others, near retirement, the biggest challenge their companies face is to groom competent successors

On October 24, a week before its joint Managing Director Lalita Gupte retired this year, ICICI Bank put out a matter-of-fact press release announcing some key reshuffles in the top management team. Chanda Kochhar, deputy Managing Director, who led the bank's retail business, was given Gupte's portfolio of international banking; V. Vaidyanathan, a senior General Manager who had built ICICI's retail business alongside Kochhar, was elevated to the level of Executive Director, while Nachiket Mor, another deputy Managing Director, retained his oversight of the rural banking initiative and global principal investments and trading. At ICICI Prudential, the bank's life insurance joint venture led by Shikha Sharma, another senior General Manager, Bhargav Dasgupta, was moved into the Executive Director's position, possibly as part of a plan to free up Sharma for a call of duty at the parent company-when the time comes.

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