HDFC Bank Limited
Leadership History
4 leaders · 1994 to present
Sashidhar Jagdishan is the CEO of HDFC Bank, in the role since 2020.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rajiv Kumar | Part-time Chairman | 2026 | Present | < 1 |
| Atanu Chakraborty | Part-time Chairman | 2021 | 2026 | 5 |
| Sashidhar Jagdishan | Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer | 2020 | Present | 6 |
| Aditya Puri | Managing Director | 1994 | 2020 | 26 |
HDFC Bank is India's largest private-sector bank by assets and deposits. Promoted by mortgage lender HDFC Ltd in 1994 and built under Aditya Puri's 26-year tenure into a byword for credit discipline, it absorbed its own parent in July 2023, adding a large home-loan book and subsidiaries in insurance and asset management. Today it serves retail, small-business and corporate customers through 9,689 branches and DBUs and a heavily digital channel mix. The absolute largest private sector bank in India was founded in 1994, completely transforming the Indian economy by bringing highly aggressive, modernized retail banking to the massive, emerging middle class.
HDFC Bank makes money mainly from the spread between what it earns on loans and investments and what it pays depositors. Net interest income was roughly two-thirds of FY2025-26 net revenues; the rest came from fees and commissions on cards, payments, third-party distribution and transaction banking, plus treasury and foreign-exchange income. Its three reporting engines are retail banking (mortgages inherited from HDFC Ltd, personal and vehicle loans, credit cards, savings accounts), wholesale banking (working capital, term loans, cash management and trade finance for companies) and treasury. Listed subsidiaries such as HDFC Life, HDFC ERGO, HDFC Asset Management and HDB Financial Services add consolidated earnings.
Part-time Chairman
2026 – Present
0 years (current)
Kumar drove heavy investments into rural and semi-urban banking infrastructure to capture India's unbanked populations.
He managed the complex post-merger integration processes to ensure the massive combined loan book maintained strict asset quality.
Part-time Chairman
2021 – 2026
5 years
Former Economic Affairs Secretary who chaired the board through the HDFC Ltd merger; resigned on March 18, 2026, citing ethical concerns. Keki Mistry served as interim chairman until Rajiv Kumar's appointment.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
2020 – Present
6 years (current)
Jagdishan, who joined the bank's finance function in 1996 and later served as CFO, took over from Aditya Puri in October 2020. He oversaw the technology remediation that led the RBI to lift its 2020 restrictions on new digital launches and card issuance, completed the HDFC Ltd merger in July 2023, and slowed loan growth in FY2025 to rebuild the deposit base.
Steered the bank through the RBI technology restrictions and the largest merger in Indian banking, while keeping gross NPAs near 1.2%.
Managing Director
1994 – 2020
26 years
Puri built the bank from scratch starting in 1994, strictly avoiding the high-risk corporate lending that plagued state-owned Indian banks in favor of retail lending.
Over 26 years as CEO, he built HDFC into India's largest and most highly valued private sector bank, maintaining pristine asset quality throughout multiple economic cycles.
HDFC Bank must defend net interest margin (3.34% in FY2025-26 and lower in Q1 FY2026-27) as rate cuts reprice loans faster than deposits, keep winning retail deposits against ICICI Bank, SBI and public-sector banks, and repair governance confidence after chairman Atanu Chakraborty's March 2026 resignation. Share-price performance has lagged profit growth since the merger, which keeps pressure on management to show return ratios recovering.
HDFC Bank has been guided by two well-known chief executives across its three-decade history: well-known founding then-CEO Aditya Puri, who led the bank for 26 transformative years from its inception in 1994 until his retirement in October 2020, and Sashidhar Jagdishan, who has served as Managing Director and CEO since October 2020.
Aditya Puri built HDFC Bank from a greenfield startup into India's largest private bank and one of the world's most valuable financial institutions. He instituted the bank's well-known conservative credit culture, delivered 20%+ compound annual earnings growth for over two decades, and created hundreds of billions of dollars in shareholder wealth.
Jagdishan led the technology remediation that ended RBI restrictions on new digital launches and card issuance (lifted fully in March 2022), completed the HDFC Ltd merger in July 2023, and rebalanced loan and deposit growth after it.
Sashidhar Jagdishan joined HDFC Bank in 1996 as a senior manager in Finance. Over 24 years, he rose through the ranks as Head of Finance, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and Head of Strategic Change, playing a central role in every major acquisition and capital raising in the bank's history.
Deepak Parekh, longtime chairman of HDFC Ltd, backed the creation of HDFC Bank in 1994 and recruited Aditya Puri to lead it. He retired when HDFC Ltd merged into the bank in 2023.
Jagdishan is supported by executive directors including Kaizad Bharucha and Bhavesh Zaveri and chief financial officer Srinivasan Vaidyanathan. The board has been chaired by Rajiv Kumar since July 15, 2026.
Chakraborty resigned on March 18, 2026, saying certain happenings and practices at the bank were not in congruence with his personal values and ethics, without giving details. Law firms hired by the bank found no substantiation, and Rajiv Kumar was appointed chairman.
Sashidhar Jagdishan is the current CEO. However, the absolute legend of HDFC Bank is Aditya Puri. He ran the bank as CEO from its inception in 1994 until his retirement in 2020 (a staggering 26 years). He famously refused to even have a computer on his desk, yet he ruthlessly built India's most technologically advanced and profitable bank.
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