The Financial Services Institutions Bureau (FSIB) on Saturday recommended Challa Sreenivasulu Setty for the position of chairman of State Bank of India (SBI).
Setty is the managing director of SBI, in charge of international banking, global markets and technology verticals.
He will succeed Dinesh Kumar Khara, who will retire on August 28 when he turns 63, the upper age limit for the position of SBI chairman.
FSIB is mandated to recommend persons for appointment as whole-time directors and non-executive chairpersons on the boards of financial services institutions apart from advising certain other matters relating to personnel management in these institutions.
A statement from the institution said it had interviewed three candidates.
“FSIB interfaced with three candidates on June 29 for the position of chairman in SBI. Keeping in view their performance in the interface, their overall experience and the extant parameters, the Bureau recommends Challa Sreenivasulu Setty for the position of chairman in SBI,” the statement said.
The SBI chairman is usually appointed from a pool of serving managing directors of the lender.
FSIB will recommend the name to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), which will take the final decision in this regard. The committee is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The other two managing directors of SBI who were reportedly in the race were Ashwini Kumar Tewari and Vinay M Tonse. Setty was the senior most among them.
FSIB is led by Bhanu Pratap Sharma, former secretary in the department of personnel and training (DoPT).
The members of the bureau include the financial services secretary, the secretary in the department of public enterprises and an RBI deputy governor.
Other members are Animesh Chauhan, former chairman and MD of the erstwhile Oriental Bank of Commerce, RBI’s ex-executive director Deepak Singhal, and Shailendra Bhandari, former MD of erstwhile ING Vysya Bank.
Setty joined the SBI board as a managing director in January 2020.
Prior to this assignment, he headed the retail and digital banking vertical. He also led various task forces and committees formed by the government of India.
A Bachelor of Science in agriculture and a certified associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers, he started his career with SBI in 1988 as a probationary officer.
He has held key assignments in SBI, including as deputy managing director — stressed assets resolution group, chief general manager and general manager in the corporate accounts group, deputy general manager in mid-corporate group and vice-president & head (syndications) in SBI, New York branch.
In October 2020, Khara took charge as the chairman for a period of three years. Subsequently his tenure was extended till August 2024.
