After resigning as MD, Uday Kotak will be a non-executive Director on the Bank’s board

After leaving his full-time position at Kotak Mahindra Bank, billionaire banker Uday Kotak, the founder of India’s fourth largest private sector lender, will become a non-executive board member. Kotak stated that the alignment and dedication of the shareholders, board, and management will help the bank navigate the changing circumstances in his final note to shareholders as managing director on Saturday.

“I see my role as a non-executive board governance member and a strategic shareholder with a long-term perspective of nurturing a world-class institution,” Kotak wrote in his letter. He claimed that having someone with “about 26% skin in the game with disproportionate family assets in one stock, emotionally attached to living his dream of making India proud” is unique in today’s world of finance.

After the Reserve Bank of India limited bank CEO terms to 15 years and to 12 years for promoter chief executives, Kotak’s time at Kotak Mahindra Bank is slated to end in December. In addition to his work at the bank, Kotak was active in the debt crisis resolution of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd. (IL&FS) and served as the chairman of the corporate governance committee for the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in 2017. To conduct a global search for a new CEO to succeed its founder, the bank has hired Egon Zehnder. K.V.S. Manian, the bank’s head of corporate banking, and Shanti Ekambaram, its head of retail banking, are regarded as contenders for the top position.