Economist Surjit S Bhalla appointed as Executive Director for India at IMF

Economist, Surjit S Bhalla has been named as the representative of India in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for three years. The post, tech-nically called Executive Director, fell vacant after Subir Gokarn died in July this year. “The Appointments Com-mittee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Dr Surjit S Bhalla, econo-mist, executive director (India), IMF, for a period of three years from the date of the assumption of charge of the post or until further orders—whichever is earlier,” an official order said.

Bhalla’s appointment comes at a time when India is facing an economic slow-down and the government is struggling hard to revive it. In fact, the IMF itself is likely to come out with a country report for India this year. It is the Executive Di-rector who replies to the IMF observation in the country report.

The IMF recently cut India’s economic growth rate to 7 per cent, from its earli-er estimate of 7.3 per cent. Bhalla, who did his PhD in Economics from Princ-eton University, attributes the current slowdown to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) hawkish stance in 2018 that led to the credit crisis in the system. In a recent interview, he said the credit cost in India is one of the highest in the world.

HCL’s Shiv Nadar tops givers list

Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man is the third most philanthropic individual in India. One place lower than last year, according to the Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2019. Ambani was replaced by Azim Premji of Wipro in the second spot. According to the report, Shiv Nadar from HCL is the most philanthropic private individual. Anas Rahman Junaid, Managing Director and Chief Researcher of Hurun Report India, said, “The cut-off rate to reach top 100 in the philanthropic list has increased by 130 per cent.” The total contribution of all the individuals in the top 100 list is around Rs.4,300 crore, a 90 percent increase from last year. Most philanthropic spending is focused in the areas of education and health.

Vidya Shah, CEO of Edelgive Foundation, said, “There are two barriers that corporates usually face while CSR spending, the first is they don’t know where to give their money and second is in terms of measurability.” While speaking to reporters, she added that a lot of important causes don’t receive funding because of the lack of measurability.

JSW Ventures appoints Sachin Tagra as Partner

JSW Ventures, the private equity venture of JSW Group, has appointed Sachin Tagra as Partner. Tagra’s appointment precedes the JSW Venture plan to mark the first close of their second fund by end of this year. Tagra joins JSW Ventures from Network18 Group where he was heading the venture investment division Capital18. He has over two decades of experience across consumer, retail and media businesses.Tagra was previously part of Brand Capital, the strategic investment arm of the Bennett, Coleman & Co and was driving investments in early-stage businesses.

Gaurav Sachdeva, Managing Partner, JSW Ventures said, “Sachin has significant experi-ence in scaling up businesses from their startup phase. This will be crucial as we build and launch a bigger fund as well as support our current portfolio companies in scaling up their businesses. Sachin has been an angel investor himself and also mentors startups at vari-ous incubators and accelera-tors,” he added

Yes Bank very close to getting capital from a tech major, says Ravneet Gill

Troubled private sector lend-er, Yes Bank is in an advanced stage of capital raising from investors, including global tech majors, to grow the balance sheet that has been consciously shrunk in recent months, says Chief Executive Ravneet Gill.

The exercise will result in the new investor/s picking up stakes above the regulatory cap and the RBI will have to take a call on a “non-conventional” investor coming on board. The mid-sized lender has been passing through a barrage of troubles since August last year when the RBI refused to give co-founder and Chief Executive Rana Kapoor, a new term and instead asked him to leave the bank by January 31, 2019, governance lapses.

Gill, who took over in March, discovered many chinks in the balance sheet, which had to be provided for, resulting in the bank reporting its maiden loss in the March 2019 quarter. The balance sheet size has been shrunk by around four percent-age points since then as a result of the same.

2019 Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer

Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer jointly won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize on Monday “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.” “The research conducted by this year’s Laureates has considerably improved our ability to fight global pov-erty. In just two decades, their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics, which is now a flourishing field of research,” said the Nobel committee in a statement.

Banerjee, 58, was educated at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Harvard University, where he received his PhD in 1988. He is currently the Ford Foundation Internation-al Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to his profile on the MIT website. In 2003, Banerjee founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan, and he remains one of the lab’s directors. He also served on the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Banerjee and Duflo work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology while Kremer is at Harvard University. After today’s announcement, Duflo has become the second woman to win the prize after Elinor Ostrom of the US in 2009. She is also the youngestever to win the prize. The Nobel win carries a 9-million-kronor ($918,000) cash award, a gold medal and a diploma .

The trade desk appoints sandeep swadia as chief Data & Trust officer

A global advertising technol-ogy leader, The Trade Desk, announced the appointment of Sandeep Swadia as the company’s first Executive Vice President, Chief Data and Trust Officer. Based on the New York office, Swadia is responsible for data strategies that will improve advertising relevance for The Trade Desk clients, while enhanc-ng the consumer experience and improving business and consumer trust.

Swadia brings 20 years’ experience in the technology and media industries, with executive leadership roles in some of the fastest-growing companies. Most recently, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of White Ops, where he helped orches-trate and lead an industrywide overhaul in digital advertising fraud prevention.

We are thrilled to add Sandeep’s unique experience in the data and trust components of digital media to our executive leadership team as we continue our rapid growth,” said Jeff Green, Founder and CEO of The Trade Desk.

“Sandeep will work across our business to help answer the en-during question that is vexing the digital advertising industry – how do we pay for all this great digital content with relevant advertising, while protecting and enhanc-ing the consumer experience? It’s a vital role, focused on our clients’ most pressing challenge as they drive more data-driven decisioning into their massive ad campaigns.” Swadia will report directly to CEO and Founder, Jeff Green.

Smaaash entertainment elevates udit Batra and Jaydeep ray

Smaaash Entertainment recently promoted Udit Batra and Jaydeep Ray. Batra will now be heading PAN India F&B operations along with NCR and Bengaluru cluster head duties. He has been associated with Smaaash since 2015 and has served as General Man-ager Operations and Cluster Head of Delhi/NCR. In the past, he has also worked with hospitality brands like The Deltin Daman, The Park and The Taj Krishna.

Jaydeep Ray will be head of brand and marketing - India (General Manager Marketing). Earlier, he played his role as the marketing head for the North India centres of Smaaash and business head for online sales. His earlier stints include working for the Kingdom of Dreams and Appughar Amusement parks as marketing and brand manager.

On the recent new ap-pointments and promotions given Kaizaad Bajina, COO, Smaaash said, “My heart-iest congratu-lations to both of them and I believe that they will do complete justice in their new roles as well. I look forward to boosting our brand’s reach with a focus on a new innovative way to do business, operational excellence, strategic development and team building.”

Policybazaar.com appoints new HR head

Insurance website and comparison portal, Policybazaar.com has appointed Chetna Gogia as its new Head of HR. Gogia will be responsible for overseeing the company’s human resources while helping business leaders with strategic people planning. Puneet Khurana, who was earlier leading HR for Policybazaar.com, moves within the group venture, Paisabazaar.com, to head the same function.

“We are excited to have Chetna on board in this very crucial leadership role. She holds more than a decade of experience that will add valuable competence to the continuous develop-ment and strategic expansion of our organisation.” Alok Bansal, Policybazaar.com Co-founder & CFO, said

Gogia, Head of HR, Policybazaar.com, said: “I am excited to join Policybazaar.com and looking forward to help the com-pany grow through HR, change management and leadership development. Policybazaar has a very vibrant culture. My aim is to create robust HR processes and make the brand a preferred employer in the marketplace.”

Chetna comes with more than 15+ years of experience and has deep exposure and understanding of organisational devel-opment, culture building, and HR processes. She has done her majors in HR from Madurai University. Prior to Policybazaar.com, she was leading the HR function for PayU Payments Pvt Ltd. for more than five years. She has led HR practices in many organisations with her key expertise in HR and talent strategy, performance and compensation management, talent acquisi-tion and resource planning among many.

Intuit appoints Aditi Puri Batra as country manager for India

Aditi Puri Batra has been appointed as the new Country Manager of Intuit India. In this role, Aditi will be responsible for the growth and success of the QuickBooks offerings in India.

A seasoned global sales and business develop-ment leader with 21 years of experience, Batra has an accomplished track record of building busi-nesses and driving expansion into new markets in India and the US. She has set up and scaled sales teams, establishing complex multi-million dollar strategic partnerships and incubating C-level rela-tionships for some of the world’s foremost internet and media brands such as Amazon, Google, CBS, CNET and CNBC.

Having spent nearly two years at Intuit, Batra was heading sales and marketing for India. In that role, she has transformed the team, steered deep custom-er understanding for the business. In addition to reimagining the India business, Batra drove signifi-cant customer growth year-on-year for QuickBooks Online. Today QuickBooks Online is one of India’s leading cloud accounting software used by small businesses and accountants.

“I am very excited with this new opportunity to drive transformational growth for QuickBooks in India. I look forward to effectively collaborating and driving teams across multiple groups to deliver re-sults. I am confident that we will continue to show-case our partnership with accountants to propel the growth of small business in India. We, as a company are working towards helping accountants in India grow their practice and help simplify the financial lives of their small business clients,” said Aditi Puri Batra, Country Manager, Intuit India.

Mastercard India elevates Vikas Varma to chief operating officer

Payment technology major, Mastercard India, said it has elevated Vikas Varma to the position of Chief Operating Officer. Varma has been asso-ciated with Mastercard since 2005 and has held various leadership roles, including overseeing the business, market and merchant development, among others. Recently, Mastercard announced an investment of US$1 billion over the next five years in India, in addition to the earlier invest-ment of US$1 billion between 2014-19. Varma will play a critical role in channelising this invest-ment towards Mastercard’s long-term strategy for the Indian market.

In his new role, he will lead initiatives such as new partnerships and development of digital payments solutions in the country. These ini-tiatives will further accelerate Master-card’s ongoing focus on technology in-novation, merchant acceptance, and consumer adoption of digital payments.

“Vikas will play a critical role in channelising this investment towards Mastercard’s long-term strategy for the India market,” the company said. Given the importance of innovation for a digitally-empowered society, Mastercard has been actively involved in nurturing the fintech ecosystem in India through a variety of partner-ships and the infusion of capital into early-stage startups, it added.

Punjab National Bank appoints Mallikarjuna Rao as new MD

S S Mallikarjuna Rao has been appointed the new Managing Director of Punjab National Bank, the country’s second-largest public sector bank. Rao, who was the Managing Director & CEO of Alla-habad Bank, will be at the helm of PNB till September 18 2021, or until further orders, whichever is earlier, according to an order issued by the Finance Ministry.

He had been the Chief Executive of Allahabad Bank since September 2018. Prior to that, Rao was the Executive Director at Syndicate Bank from September 2016.

Rao is assuming charge at a time when PNB has just emerged out of a Rs.13,000 crore fraud that shook the bank. He also now has to deal with the proposed merger of Orien-tal Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India with PNB, which will post the three-way amalgamation from April 1 next year.