Tonse Appointed As Fourth SBI MD; Reshuffling Top Management

Dinesh Kumar Khara, Chairman, State Bank of India (SBI), has reshuffled the top management of the SBI after the government notified the appointment of Vinay Tonse as the fourth managing director (MD) of the bank on 21 November.

The new Managing Director will be in charge of Retail Banking and Operations (RB&O). Alok Choudhary, who happened to be the MD of retail banking, will now handle risk, compliance and stressed assets resolution group (R, C & SARG), three people aware of the matter said.

One of the three persons cited above has said that the changes were mentioned in an internal office order by the chairman on Tuesday and are effective immediately after the necessary handing over formalities are completed till Wednesday.

Tonse had been declared the sole candidate for the MD position by the Financial Services Institutions Bureau (FSIB) in September following when 13 candidates were interviewed in August. The appointment has been confirmed after receiving approval from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday evening following which it was notified on Tuesday. Tonse will be serving a two-year term as MD.

The SBI MD position has been vacant since Swaminathan Janakiraman was appointed the RBI deputy governor in the month of June.

As SBI MD, Swaminathan was the in-charge of corporate banking and subsidiaries (CB & S). CB & S portfolio is now given to Ashwini Kumar Tewari, who was till then looking at risk, compliance and SARG.

There are no changes mentioned as far as the portfolio of the senior most MD CS Setty is concerned and he will continue to be in charge of international banking, global markets & technology (IB, GM & T).

The second person of the three people cited above had said that the change in portfolios is an absolute discretion of the chairman and will take immediate effect.

Last month, the government had extended the tenure of chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara until August next year and also gave MD Tewari a two-year extension with effect from 28 January 2024.

Earlier the term of CS Setty was also extended by two years with effect from 20 January 2023. Among the current MDs, Choudhary's term is going to an end on June 30, 2024.