Mr. Amit Kumar is a PGP ’91 alumnus, and
currently the Senior President and Country Head, Corporate and
Institutional Banking, YES Bank Ltd. As a professional entrepreneur manager, he is part of the founding team
at YES Bank and manages the wholesale banking business.
In Sep-11, He spoke about"Building Professional Entrepreneurship: The YES Bank
Story",which covered a snapshot of Indian Banking and the story of
Indian entrepreneurs so far. He also spoke about Institution Building at YES
Bank from the perspective of a Professional Entrepreneur. This post tries to capture the key points from that interesting talk. I'm posting this after months, so some parts may be vague. Do not quote!
- He had worked in SBI Capital Markets, ANZ Grindlays, Standard Chartered Bank and finally moved to YES Bank in 2004 as a co-founder
- Entrepreneurship is not a 2nd option, it is a leap of faith.
- One must strike that balance between entrepreneurial growth, and institution building(setting the processes, systems, controls in place) to allow for profitable and scalable growth.
- A smart banker is ahead of the curve and can shift loans to promoter/vendor financing at the slightest whiff of trouble, that differentiates him from a stuffy banker!
- Industry knowledge/expertise is essential for that extra finesse and understanding to make that customer feel that you are a partner/friend and not a fair whether friend! And that expertise helps during a downturn when one must rejig exposures and take hard decisions
- Timing, luck and hardwork was what helped, as was a SWOT analysis based partnership
- They made some(ok many!) strategic decisions like
- Making lemonade from the 'lemon' of the priority sector. They now specialize in food, agri, microfinance and other priority sector lending, quite profitably.
- Crowdsourcing ideas via contests, from partners etc
- Partnering with Wipro and others for ensuring 60days ATM rollout including master switch. That 'pay as you use' model also helped quick scaling./cost structure optimize.
- Sustainable banking is beyond ROE, and includes triple bottomline, responsible selling and maintaining one's reputation
- Commenting on the wealth creation, he said that if he had stuck with foreign banks, he would never have been that wealthy.
- On the attributes of an entreprenuer
- Tech Savvy
- Well Exposed
- Knowledgable
- Confident
- Well Networked
- Willing to take risks(key!)
- CRM helps one to bring a diagnostic proactive approach to clients
