HDFC Bank appoints former financial services secretary Rajiv Kumar as new Non-Executive Chairman

on Monday appointed , a former and ex-Chief Election Commissioner of India, as its Part-time (Non-Executive) Chairman, ending a months-long search for a permanent head following the abrupt exit of in March.

The bank’s board, at a meeting held on June 29, approved Kumar’s appointment as an Additional (Independent) Director for a period of four years with effect from June 30, 2026. His appointment as Part-time Chairman for a period of three years is subject to the approval of the . The appointment as will additionally require shareholder approval.

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Veteran banker Keki Mistry, an independent director on the bank’s board, had stepped in as interim part-time chairman after Chakraborty quit in March. The RBI had approved a 90-day extension for Mistry in that role.

Chakraborty had abruptly stepped down on March 18, 2026, citing that “certain happenings and practices” within the bank over the previous two years were “not in congruence” with his personal values and ethics. The bank had commissioned US-based Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and India’s Wadia Ghandy & Co. to conduct an independent legal review, which found that Chakraborty’s allegations were “not substantiated” by documentary evidence or witness interviews.

The chairman’s appointment had been pending as the Nomination and Remuneration Committee debated several names and worked with executive search firm Egon Zehnder to shortlist candidates, though multiple names had not materialised for various reasons.

Kumar, 66, is a 1984-batch IAS officer who retired as Finance Secretary of India in February 2020. He is widely known for steering the clean-up of public sector bank balance sheets between 2017 and 2020, when he served as Secretary of the Department of . His tenure saw the rollout of the “4R strategy” — Recognition, Resolution, Recapitalisation and Reforms — which contributed to a turnaround in the public sector banking system. The period also saw a capital infusion exceeding Rs 3 lakh crore into public sector banks, and the consolidation of 27 public sector banks into 12 entities.

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Kumar also served as the 25th , overseeing the 2024 General Elections to the Lok Sabha, in which approximately 642 million electors participated. He has served on the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India, the Financial Stability and Development Council, the Bank Board Bureau, and the boards of and NABARD, among other bodies.

With the chairman appointment now in place, the board is expected to take up the tenure extension of MD and CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan, whose current term ends in October 2026.