Ujjivan Small Finance Bank on Wednesday said that it has unanimously approved the appointment of Carol Furtado as the officer on special duty leading the day-to-day operation of the bank from August 26.

A board meeting was scheduled to put in place a crisis management team six days after MD and CEO Nitin Chugh resigned amid signs of a clash of culture between the old and new guard at the fledgling bank that started operations in 2017.

After Chugh vacates office on September 30, 2021, Furtado will take charge as the interim CEO, subject to RBI approval. The board will continue to hunt for suitable candidates to the post in parallel and will submit two names to the RBI for its approval.

With over 25 years of experience in microfinance and retail banking, Furtado was one of the key members of the leadership team that laid the foundation and built Ujjivan and has been part of Ujjivan group since 2005.

Ujjivan founder Samit Ghosh who was reappointed on the bank’s board as a non-executive, non independent director to address the concerns of deteriorating asset quality during Covid pandemic and top level attritions and to oversee the reverse merger process, said that the bank will conduct an independent portfolio quality and process audit. He also expressed confidence in Furtado being able to manage the challenges.

“Carol has been our go-to person during any major crisis. I am sure she will lead us out of this Covid crisis with flying colours. We do not foresee any near term major issues in the portfolio quality of the bank. With the provision coverage ratio of 75 per cent, the highest in the industry, we are very well positioned. The bank is undertaking an independent portfolio quality and process audit. We look towards streamlining the provisioning policy. We are confident of strengthening the organisation and emerge as a stronger Ujjivan,” Ghosh said.

The bank also informed the bourses that its board on Wednesday approved the appointment of Banavar Anantharamaiah Prabhakar, who is an additional director (independent), as the part-time chairman of the bank to fill the vacancy caused due to the resignation of Biswamohan Mahapatra, subject to the prior approval of the RBI.

The bank’s board has also approved the recategorisation of the directorship of Rajesh Kumar Jogi from additional director (non-executive, non-independent) to additional director (independent) effective from August 25, 2021. The bank will hold its fifth annual general meeting on September 27, 2021.

Addressing the concerns of market analysts last week on the implications of the change of management and further attrition, Ghosh had clarified that the bank will not change its direction following the departure of Chugh.

“Nitin has hired a lot of people who are there in the organisation still and we have to make sure that those who want to stay with us will stay on and we certainly will not change our direction in terms of building the mass-market bank based on technology and digitization, etc., so that will certainly continue and it is certainly not going to go back to the pre Nitin days because we have moved ahead quite a bit and we will move further beyond that line and we will stay the course we are not going to change the course,” Ghosh had said.