NEW DELHI: Piramal Enterprises Limited has announced the appointment of Jairam Sridharan as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of its Consumer Finance Business.
Jairam comes with over two decades of deep expertise in domestic and international retail finance. Previously, as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Axis, Jairam raised over US$1.8 Bn, the largest private equity infusion in banking at the time, and led the finance, strategy, M&A and investor relations functions.
Before that, he was President, retail lending & payments at Axis Bank, where he led the transformation of Axis into a retail bank growing the book 6 times in 5 years. During this period, Axis emerged as one of the top 5 retail lending institutions in the country. Before joining Axis Bank, Jairam served Capital One Financial, one of America’s most pioneering tech-enabled consumer banks, as Head of their ‘New to Credit’ card acquisitions. He started his career at ICICI Bank, where he headed their ‘business intelligence unit’ and developed the analytical capabilities of the bank.
Commenting on the appointment Anand Piramal, Executive Director, Piramal Group said, “We are delighted to welcome Jairam Sridharan. Jairam not only has rich experience in building a large retail finance business but also has deep knowledge of technology and analytics, a combination that positions us well as we build a business of the future.”
Consumer and small business financing is one of India’s most exciting growth opportunities. Current penetration in consumer finance in India is a third of China, and a fifth of that in the US. In addition, only 5 out of 80 million MSMEs have access to formal credit. Rapid internet penetration and progressive government reforms such as IndiaStack and GST have made India a data rich and digitally driven country.
“Our hope is to create a world class new age AI-led lending business that helps fuels the growth of small businesses and fulfils the aspiration of Indian consumers. We believe greatly in India’s financial services story, both on the wholesale and retail side, and this foray helps us build a more innovative, diversified and complete financial services conglomerate.” said Anand.
Jairam holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi and Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Kolkata where he was awarded a Roll of Honour for academic excellence. In 2015, Jairam was on The Economic Times’ ‘40 Under 40’ list of India’s hottest business leaders. In 2019, the Institutional Investor magazine named him ‘Best CFO’ in their All-Asia Executive team for Banks, based on Sell-Side analyst votes.
