ICICI Bank appoints Gireesh Chandra Chaturvedi as non executive chairman

New Delhi: ICICI Bank Ltd board on Friday named former bureaucrat Girish Chandra Chaturvedi as part-time non-executive chairman. The bank said Chaturvedi’s appointment will be effective 1 July, or the date of receipt of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) approval, whichever is later. Current chairman M.K. Sharma’s term ends on 30 June.

ICICI Bank board also appointed Chaturvedi as an additional independent director, effective 1 July, for a period of three years, subject to the approval of shareholders.

“The board is extremely pleased with this development and believes that Mr Chaturvedi will provide maturity and sagacity to the deliberations of the Board. This would also ensure a seamless and smooth transition of leadership at the Board and would address stakeholder concerns in this behalf,” ICICI Bank said in a statement to stock exchanges.

The move comes barely days after Sandeep Bakhshi was appointed as chief operating officer, a new role created at ICICI Bank. He will run the private bank in the absence of ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, who has gone on indefinite leave till an internal probe into the Videocon loan case.

Chaturvedi’s appointment also comes after a third whistleblower complaint, which alleged that ICICI Bank inflated profits to the tune of $1.8 billion in eight years by withholding provisioning against bad loans.