Books, coffee and banking: Anup Bagchi the ICICI lifer set to lead HDFC Bank

For 34 years, every job on ’s visiting card has belonged to the . He has run its securities arm, led retail and wholesale banking, and headed its life insurer. On October 27, he will leave that fold for the first time to occupy the corner office at , India’s largest private lender.

The has approved his appointment as managing director and chief executive for three years. He will succeed Sashidhar Jagdishan, whose term ends on October 26. Bagchi has switched businesses several times, but always within ICICI. At , he will have to find his footing in a new organisation.

Former colleagues describe a sharp executive with an informal manner. Bagchi likes cold coffee with ice and reads about a book a week, often on management. He recommends books he enjoys to colleagues, sometimes joking that they have seven days to finish them.

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“He would call and ask, ‘Are you busy?’” recalled a banking official who worked with him. Say no and he might find you work; say yes and he could tease you about being too busy for a director. A good idea could elicit another joke: “You’re talking sense. Now you’ll have to buy me a coffee.”

That ease with colleagues stands out to people who have worked with him. “In my experience, people with very high IQ often have low EQ. He is an exception,” said one official, who asked not to be identified.

Bagchi took charge of at on November 1, 2016. Demonetisation was announced a week later, sending banks into an operational scramble. “He handled the situation so smoothly that we would say among ourselves: it didn’t even feel as though a new boss had arrived,” a former colleague said.

A chemical engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur’s 1990 batch, Bagchi also has a management degree from IIM Bangalore. He joined ICICI in 1992 and worked across treasury, corporate banking and retail financial services. As managing director and of from 2011, he oversaw broking, wealth management, product distribution and corporate finance. He also helped develop ICICI Direct’s online trading platform and ICICI Bank’s internet banking platform.

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After returning to the bank to run retail, he served as an executive director from 2017 to 2023, overseeing retail, business and rural banking before moving to wholesale banking. One official called ICICI a “CEO factory” for the leaders it has supplied to other . Bagchi’s appointment will mark a first: an executive who spent his career in the ICICI Group will take HDFC Bank’s top job.

At HDFC Bank, he will have to carry the approach he developed over three decades at ICICI into an organisation he did not grow up in.