Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) has a new Executive Chairman in S Lakshminarayanan, a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer.
Following this decision of REL Board, the promoter Malvinder Mohan Singh will relinquish his position as Non-Executive Chairman and continue as a non-executive Board Member.
Lakshminarayanan is currently non-executive Chairman and Independent Director in Shriram Transport Finance Co Ltd, the country's largest non-banking finance company.
Assuming his position as the Executive Chairman of Religare, Lakshminarayanan said in a statement: “I am proud to lead Religare into its new phase of growth. The past few years have been challenging for the organisation. Both Malvinder and Shivinder from the time they returned to the Board last year have done a commendable job by taking various strategic decisions and corrective actions to stabilise and consolidate the business".
Welcoming Lakshminarayanan, the promoters Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh said, “We are deeply honoured to have Lakshminarayanan as the new Executive Chairman of Religare. Under his leadership we are confident that Religare will overcome its existing challenges and will be back on its growth path.”
Adding further Malvinder and Shivinder said, “We have always believed that a professional management should run a diversified and highly regulated business such as Religare. However in July 2016, due to sliding business performance, we had to return back on the Board. Since then we have been engaging closely with the members of the Board and the Management to understand and address the issues and took a series of corrective measures to stabilize the Company. We now feel the time has once again come for us to hand over the reins to a new committed professional team to drive Religare’s future growth.”
Meanwhile, Kishori Udeshi has been appointed as an Independent Director.
She was the first woman to be appointed as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and also the first Executive Director of the RBI to be nominated on the Board of State Bank of India.