Ravneet Gill appointed YES Bank MD and CEO  

After months of speculation and uncertainty, YES Bank, India’s fifth largest private sector lender, finally announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) to replace Rana Kapoor, who co-founded the bank with his late brother-in-law, Ashok Kapur.

YES Bank announced on Thursday that Ravneet Gill, Deutsche Bank’s India CEO will succeed Kapoor after the latter demits office on January 31. “The bank has received RBI (Reserve Bank of India) approval for its new MD and CEO, Mr. Ravneet Gill for him to join on or before March 1, 2019,” YES Bank said in a statement announcing its quarterly earnings for the October-December 2018 period. “The board will convene on January 29, 2019 to finalise the interim transition.”

Gill, who has also been a member of Deutsche Bank’s Asia-Pacific executive committee since March 2018, has around 26 years of experience as a banker. He joined Deutsche Bank in 1991. Prior to his elevation to CEO of the Indian operations of the Germany-headquartered bank, he was the head of capital markets and treasury solutions.
Due to the central bank’s alleged displeasure at some alleged corporate governance lapses and alleged under-reporting of bad loans, it refused to extent Kapoor’s tenure as the bank’s chief beyond January 31.

Subsequently, a search and selection committee was set up to find Kapoor’s successor and executive search firm Korn Ferry was appointed to aid in the process. The process was also complicated due to a couple of high-level resignations – that of R. Chandrashekhar, an independent director on YES Bank’s board and former president of IT industry body, NASSCOM in November; and the departure of O.P. Bhatt, former State Bank of India chairman, who was a part of the search committee.

Eventually, the two professionals that remained in the race for the corner office at YES Bank, which has a current market capitalisation of ₹49,400 crore, were Gill and Rajat Monga, senior group president at YES Bank and an old hand who has been with the organisation since its inception.

Due to the uncertainty around the future of the bank’s leadership, its share price has taken a beating over the last six months, falling close to 47%. YES Bank shares recovered some ground on Thursday after Gill’s appointment, gaining 8.39% to close at ₹213.85 apiece on the BSE. The bourse’s benchmark index, S&P BSE Sensex gained 0.24% on the same day to end at 36,195.10 points.

The lender also reported a fall of 7% in its net profit to ₹1,002 crore in the third quarter. Its total revenue in the same period rose 36% to ₹8,850 crore.