Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2002
Ensuring sustainable livelihoods:
challenges for governments, corporates, and civil society at Rio+10
8 - 11 February 2002, New Delhi

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Mr M S Verma
Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

TRAI is a statutory body established by an Act of the Parliament to regulate the telecommunication services in India.

PROFILE

Retired from State Bank of India (S.B.I.), India’s largest commercial bank as its Chairman after over 40 years of experience in different facets of banking encompassing commercial banking at national and international levels, developmental banking, investment banking and asset management.

The Chairman of State Bank of India is also the Chairman of the entire State Bank group. The bank has in all 19 subsidiaries 14 of which are in India and five abroad in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Mauritius and Nigeria. Amongst the 14 subsidiaries in India, eight are banking subsidiaries and six non-banking companies in the business of investment banking, fund management, factoring, trading in gilts, card issuance and payment services management. Each of these companies is a pioneer and a leader in its field in the country.

S.B.I. has nearly 8,900 offices in India and 33 countries across the world employing nearly 240,000 people. The banking group together has over 13,000 offices and employs nearly 320,000 people. By far the biggest financial services group in the country, having one of the largest network of offices in the world, the group accounts for about 31% of the banking assets in India. S.B.I. alone accounts for over 20% of India’s banking assets. 

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

(i) Chairman, State Bank of India and the State Bank Group (97-98); (ii) Managing Director, S.B.I. (95-97); (iii) Deputy Managing Director, S.B.I. (94-95); (iv) Chief General Manager, Bengal Circle, S.B.I., (92-94); (v) Joint Executive Director, In-Charge of Mutual Funds, S.B.I. Capital Markets Ltd. (90-92); (vi) General Manager, In-Charge of Corporate Banking, S.B.I. Capital Markets Ltd. (87-90); (vii) Manager, Commercial/Head of S.B.I. Offshore Banking Unit (O.B.U.) at Bahrain, and Bank’s Representative to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, U.A.E., Oman, Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Iraq (80-86); (viii) Managing Director, Bank of Bhutan (80-82) 

KEY EXPERIENCES

• During the period of Mr.Verma’s chairmanship, the group and particularly the State Bank of India achieved notable success. It went into newer areas of business and recorded the highest profit ever in its existence. The bank was voted as the best run corporation in the country more than once.
• A major achievement during his tenure was the extremely successful debt issue by the bank, Resurgent India Bonds (R.I.B.), which fetched from the Indians and the Non-Resident Indians abroad subscriptions amounting to U.S. $4.6 billion in August 1998. This is to-date the most successful public issue of debt or equity made by any Indian corporate anywhere.

• Was appointed by the Government of India as the Managing Director of the bank in December 1995. Being the second senior most functionary after the Chairman in the bank’s central management committee, Mr.Verma oversaw and guided the bank through the massive change process it was then undergoing following the organizational restructuring suggested by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. It was a process involving far reaching changes in administrative hierarchies, work procedures, systems and the culture of the bank. The change management was complete and successful.

• As Deputy Managing Director, Mr.Verma closely associated with the restructuring exercise, the bank was undergoing at the time with the assistance of the consulting firm, McKinsey & Co. Being a member of the steering committee relating to the restructuring exercise one of my important responsibilities was to assess the value and implementability of the advice rendered by the consultants and then to devise plans and methods for its organization-wide communication, acceptance and implementation.
• During this period, following the advice of the consultants, the bank re-engineered and re-cast its business into Strategic Business Units (S.B.Us.). Mr.Verma was entrusted with the direct responsibility of setting up the bank’s most critical S.B.Us. for the corporate banking group covering its largest and most remunerative client relationships. The task involved setting up new divisions of the S.B.Us., to select and especially train people to handle business under the new regime, to develop new product lines and change the technological platform over which the service was to be delivered from ordinary to the latest and the very best available in the country. The task of setting up the S.B.Us. and turning them into the most competitive and preferred banking business setup in the country for large corporates was accomplished within a record period of less than 12 months.

Chief General Manager, Bengal Circle, State Bank of India (1992-94)

• Worked as the head of one of the bank’s largest and most critical circles covering about 900 branches with over 22,000 employees in the country’s eastern states of West Bengal and Sikkim and the centrally governed areas of Andamans and Nicobar Islands. During this period the circle made impressive progress and produced some of the best results to date in business growth, profits and human resource management.

Joint Executive Director, In-Charge of Mutual Funds, S.B.I. Capital Markets Ltd. (1990-92)

• Worked as the head of the bank’s newly opened mutual fund division and brought it up from almost scratch to be the second largest mutual fund in the country only after the Unit Trust of India (U.T.I.) which was in the field for over 25 years.

• On deputation to the bank’s newly opened wholly owned merchant banking subsidiary, S.B.I. Capital Markets Ltd., was placed in-charge of corporate banking business. In his three year tenure in the division it emerged as the leader and the top new issue manager in the country, managing over 300 IPOs. S.B.I. Capital Markets Ltd., was ranked as #1 merchant banker in India and managed some of the largest public offerings in the country made at that time.

Manager Commercial/Head of S.B.I. Offshore Banking Unit (O.B.U.), Bahrain (1982-86)

• As Manager Commercial and later as the Head of the O.B.U., Mr.Verma entrusted with the representational responsibilities for other countries in the middle east, viz Saudi Arabia, Qatar, U.A.E., Oman, Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. This was the period during which the Suok-Al-Manak failure (Kuwait Share Market Crash) rocked not only the economy of Kuwait, but also the economies of all other Gulf States. Almost every banks operating in the area had a difficult time. As S.B.I.’s only office in the middle east, the O.B.U. had a sizeable asset portfolio spread all over the Gulf countries and amongst my main responsibilities during my tenure was the task of launching and effective damage control program and steering the O.B.U. out of the crisis which was achieved with considerable success.

Managing Director, Bank of Bhutan, Bhutan (1980-82)

• Bank of Bhutan was then the only commercial bank in the country and as there was no central bank or monetary authority in Bhutan at that time, it was also entrusted with some of central bank responsibilities such as currency issue and its management. The assignment was a unique experience in long term planning for developing a country-wide banking system in a predominantly agricultural and under-developed economy.

Other Associations:-

Honorary Advisor to Reserve Bank of India (R.B.I.)

• Honorary advisor to R.B.I., India’s central bank and the regulatory authority for banks, financial institutions and non-banking companies. Main advisory areas are: weak banks, supervision, particularly on-site inspection of banks and financial institutions, evolution of a national policy on gold, introduction of gold products by banks and development of markets of such products in the country.
• A working group appointed by the Government of India (G.O.I.) and R.B.I. with Mr.Verma as the Chairman has submitted a report on the restructuring of weak banks in India suggesting a strategic plan for financial, organizational and operational restructuring of the identified weak banks. The report which is under consideration of the G.O.I. and the R.B.I., is seen as a definitive work on weakness in public sector banks in India and has been recognized as a landmark in the Indian banking literature.

Chairman (Non-Executive) of the Board of Directors of I.D.B.I. Bank

• I.D.B.I. bank is a private sector bank in India, promoted by the I.D.B.I, India’s largest development bank and the Small Industries Development Bank of India (S.I.D.B.I.). Established in November 1995, the bank has at present an asset base of over Indian Rs. 32 billion and has been rated as one the fastest growing banks in the country.

Chairman, Primary Market Advisory Committee of Securities and Exchange Boards of India (S.E.B.I)

Member, Governing Council, National Council of Applied Economic Research (N.C.A.E.R.), India

Member, Steering Committee, South Asian Forum of Infrastructure Regulators (SAFIR) 

EXPERIENCE WITH NATIONAL LEVEL EXPERT COMMITTIES

In the recent times, Mr.Verma was invited to serve on the following committees/working groups set up at the apex level:

• As Chairman (Acting) and member of the Steering Committee of South Asian Forum of Infrastructure Regulators (SAFIR), a body being set up with the assistance of the World Bank (2000).
• As Chairman Advisory group of the Standing Committee on Banking supervision set up by the Reserve Bank of India and Govt. of India (2000).

• As Chairman of the working group on restructuring weak public sector banks constituted by the R.B.I. in consultation with the Government of India (1999).
• As Leader of a group of experts constituted by the Government of India and the R.B.I. to study the restructuring of weak banks and corporate debts in Korea and Thailand (1999).
• As Chairman of the expert group constituted by the Indian Institute of Bankers for setting vocational standards in banking in India (1999).
• As a member of the expert group constituted by the Government of India to evolve a restructuring plan for the Unit Trust of India (U.T.I.), the largest mutual fund managing funds aggregating over Indian Rs. 6,000 billion (1998). 

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS

• Finance Man of the Year - 1998, Awarded by the Bombay Management Association, India
• Rashtrabhusan Award - 1998, Awarded by the F.I.E. Foundation, Ichalkaranjee, Maharashtra, India 

EDUCATION

1957 Master of Arts, Philosophy

Patna University, India

1955 Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy

Patna University, India (Winner of the University Gold Medal, Ranked first in the University)