MUMBAI: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of former State Bank of India (SBI) deputy managing director (DMD) Salee Sukumaran Nair for a three year term, the bank in a stock market notice.
Nair retired from SBI as DMD and chief credit officer (CCO) as recently as May this year. He takes over from S Krishnan who had resigned in September 2023 just a week after the bank wrongly credited Rs 9,000 crore to a Chennai cab driver.
Krishnan was asked to continue till a replacement was found even as there was a lot of too and fro for contenders between the bank and the RBI.
Nair’s appointment though approved by RBI, needs a nod from shareholders. He is expected to take charge by the first week of September, said a person aware of the process.
Nair a career SBI banker started with the nation’s largest bank as a probationary officer in 1987. He is a post graduate in applied electronics.
In a career span of more than 35 years, he has handled various assignments, mostly in the corporate accounts group handling large corporates. He also had two assignments in the international banking group of SBI, first at New Yorkband later heading the Australian operations based in Sydney.
He also managed branches of Rajasthan & Western Uttar Pradesh for the bank and was involved in the merging of State Bank
of Bikaner & Jaipur with SBI.
He was chief general manager in the stressed asset vertical of SBI from July 2017 till he was promoted as DMD of the vertical in April 2020, a position he held until September 2021.
“In his term in the stressed assets resolution group of SBI, he oversaw the reduction of peak NPA of 10.96% to 4.90%,” the bank said in the notice to stock exchanges.
Subsequently, he took over as DMD in charge of SME, agriculture & financial inclusion vertical from September 2021 to July 2022.
