At a board meeting this week, Bangalore-headquartered private sector bank ING Vysya confirmed the appointment of Shailendra Bhandari as managing director and chief executive officer.
Bhandari yesterday started his new assignment. He will be based in Bangalore.
Bhandari brings to his new role an extensive experience across financial services firms in India. He was most recently head of private equity at Tata Capital, a finance company set up by the Tata Group. He was earlier managing director and CEO of Centurion Bank of Punjab from February 2004 to June 2008. He led Centurion through three mergers, starting with the Bank of Punjab in 2005, followed by the takeover of Lord Krishna Bank in 2006, and finally its merger into HDFC Bank in 2008.
From 2000 to 2004 Bhandari was MD and CEO of Prudential ICICI Asset Management. Bhandari was also part of the core team which set up HDFC Bank in 1994. He worked with HDFC Bank for five years, including a stint as treasurer and executive director.
Bhandari started his banking career at Citi as a foreign exchange dealer. During the course of his 12-year career with the US bank he worked in operations, funds management, securities and investments in both India and Indonesia.
ING Vysya Bank is a private sector Indian bank with origins dating back to 1930. Dutch financial services conglomerate ING took a stake in the bank in 2002, after which the bank was renamed ING Vysya.
ING is currently the largest shareholder in ING Vysya Bank with a 44% stake. In April 2009, ING nominee Vaughn Richtor who was seconded to ING Vysya as CEO, completed his three-year tenure at the helm of the Indian bank and moved onto another senior management role within ING Group.
