The country’s largest lender, SBI, is headed by chairman with four managing directors to assist.

Khara will replace SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar, whose three-year term comes to an end on October 7.

Interestingly, Khara was among the contenders for the chairman’s post in 2017 as well.

Khara was appointed as managing director of SBI in August 2016 for a three-year term. He got a two-year extension in 2019 after review of his performance.

An alumnus of the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University, Khara heads the Global Banking division of SBI. He holds a board-level position and supervises the businesses of SBI’s non-banking subsidiaries.

Prior to being appointed managing director, he was the MD and CEO of SBI Funds Management Pvt Limited (SBIMF).

Khara, who joined SBI in 1984 as a Probationary Officer, was instrumental in merging five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank with SBI effective April 2017.

The new SBI chairman will have a tough task ahead as the banking sector is going through a major crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As on June 30, SBI had made total provisions of ₹3,000 crore to cover potential COVID-19 losses. Gross non-performing asset (NPA) ratio of 5.44 per cent was lower than 6.15 per cent in the March quarter.

The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) had on Friday recommended the name of Dinesh Kumar Khara, SBI’s senior-most managing director, as the next chairman of the country’s largest lender.

“Keeping in view their performance in the interface and their overall experience, the Bureau recommends…Dinesh Kumar Khara for the vacancy of Chairman in State Bank of India (and) Challa Sreenivasulu Setty as the candidate on the Reserve List for the said vacancy,” BBB said in a statement.

As per convention, the SBI chairman is appointed from a pool of serving managing directors at the bank.

With agency inputs