Nishanth Rajasekharan

Senior Risk Manager - Executive Manager

Key Responsibilities:
§ Responsible for review and approval of credit proposals within the delegation of authority.
§ Assist Chief Credit Officer for managing Credit Risk of Wholesale Banking & HNW Clients including investment of the Bank.
§ Review and approval/recommendations related to Special/Stressed Assets Accounts within provided DOA in line with Bank’s Risk Acceptance and Credit underwriting criteria.
§ Responsible for steering the periodic Portfolio Meeting Forum and Special Asset Forum to identify stressed accounts and formulate work out or de-risking plan.
§ Responsible for implementing robust Risk Management framework & culture across the Bank especially with the focus on Credit Quality, Governance, etc. in consultation with CRO & CCO.
§ Assist and work as a back up to Chief Credit Officer for delegated work in his absence.
§ Work closely with the Senior Management, Audit, Compliance & other Control functions, Lines of Businesses and Risk Committee.
§ Responsible for reviewing, developing and implementation of policies and procedures related to Credit & Risk.
§ Responsible for initiating and implementing various system enhancement and automation projects to improve the current processes and optimal use of existing resources.
§ Implement and monitor ESG compliance in lending portfolio through development and Institutionalizing the ESG Risk Policy, SOPs and Scorecard.
§ Assure compliance with all regulatory requirements, directives and mandates.
§ Act as a single point of contact for Internal & External auditors and regulators.
§ Continuously developing and enhancing various framework and polices for ensuring top class risk management culture in the organisation.
§ Responsible for identifying early warning indicators in the portfolio by conducting periodic review and risk assessment.
§ Conduct regular industry Specific Analysis through Market Research and its impact on Bank’s Portfolio and device action plans on borrowers to mitigate potential risks and then fix/re-align the Risk Appetite limits especially on these sectors in line with the Bank’s strategy.
§ Guide and assist in developing and maintaining a RCSA framework which provides for the identification of inherent risks, mitigating controls & residual risks and KRAs & KPIs
§ Support in periodical calculation of minimum capital requirement and perform stress test as per ICAAP and stress test framework and submission to relevant stakeholders including regulators.
§ Establish a strong risk management & governance culture which promotes good analysis, judgment, flexibility and balance between risk and reward to achieve sustainable result.

Deputy Vice President & Head - Corporate Risk (Reporting to Chief Risk Officer)

Key Responsibilities:
§ Responsible for managing Credit Risk across all Business segments including investment of the Bank.
§ Responsible for implementing robust Enterprise Risk Management framework across the Bank.
§ Assist and work as a back up to Chief Risk Officer for all the risk functions of the bank including Credit, Operational, Market, Information Security, etc.
§ Work closely with the MD & CEO, CFO, Audit, Compliance & other Control functions, Lines of Businesses and Risk Committee, other executive and non-executive committee members and Board of Directors.
§ Institutionalise a consistent level of risk awareness throughout the organisation.
§ Initiate and develop new process for creating a Centre of Excellence for managing risk especially, Credit Risk, Operational Risk, Fraud Risk, & Market Risk etc.
§ Assure compliance with all regulatory requirements, directives and mandates.
§ Manage a healthy working relationship with Regulators and external auditors
§ Manage & Review Risk with discretionary control over budgets allocated to make the frameworks operative up to a Risk Appetite threshold approved by the Risk Committee and the Board
§ Continuously developing, enhancing and embedding the risk framework for managing all the risks across the institution, ensuring that processes are fit for purpose.
§ Responsible for identifying Risk profile of Countries, Sovereigns, Large Corporate & MNCs.
§ Responsible for fixing the Risk Appetite limits especially on various operations as required and ensure that limits are proposed in line with the Risk Appetite and Organization’s strategy
§ Ensure that the credit risk in the asset portfolio is correctly identified, measured, monitored and reported, by evaluating & monitoring current micro economic and macro-economic conditions& scenarios.
§ Lead a team of Risk Officers and Managers for managing all the risk functions.
§ Guide and assist in developing and maintaining a RCSA framework which provides for the identification of inherent risks, mitigating controls & residual risks and KRAs & KPIs
§ Periodical calculation of minimum capital requirement and perform stress test as per ICAAP and stress test framework and submission to relevant stakeholders including regulators.
§ Establish a strong risk management culture which promotes good analysis, judgment, flexibility and balance between risk and reward along with Top Management & Board.
§ Manage Enterprise Risk Management framework for the organization.
§ Provided key & strategic inputs to Top management in defining strategies to enter into new line of business, product and technologies.
§ Appointed in various Top Management Committees as member & invitee.

Taken up an interim strategic role as Head of Risk & Credit with Lulu Capital Limited (an ADGM FSRA regulated financial institution formed under Lulu Financial Holdings, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) for developing and implementing Risk Management Framework, Policies, Product Programme, Process and SOPs for the company and group. All the required policies, framework, SOPs was successfully developed and implemented with the approval from relevant stakeholders. The said role was directly reporting to Board of Directors and Board Risk & Compliance Committee.

Head of Credit Risk & Dy Chief Risk Officer (Reporting to the Chief Risk Officer)
Acted as Chief Risk Officer for a period of 1 year managing the Risk Management Division

Key Responsibilities:
Responsible for managing Credit Risk across all Business segments including investment of the Bank.
§ Leading a team of Credit Risk Officers and Managers for managing the bank's asset portfolio.
§ Assist CRO to Develop and maintain a RCSA framework which provides for the identification of inherent risks, mitigating controls & residual risks and KRAs & KPIs
§ Review and monitoring of market risk especially investment & equity portfolio, banks & country lines along with review of Maturities of Assets and Liabilities report under normal and stressed scenario, LCR & NSFR on a monthly basis for ALCO and regulatory submission.
§ Responsible for fraud risk management activities across the Bank along with development of fraud risk management program and standards for fraud monitoring, detection, case management, investigating and reporting.
§ Periodical calculation of minimum capital requirement and perform stress test as per ICAAP and stress test framework and submission to relevant stakeholders including regulators.
§ Review and submission of IFRS 9 ECL provisioning results to relevant stakeholders including Regulators, Auditors, Top Management & Board.
§ Work as a backup of Chief Risk Officer in his absence and execute all the functions of CRO.
§ Review and approval of Credit Risk Rating through Moody's Risk Analyst. Review the same on a periodic basis to ensure that rating reflect the current status of the counter party.
§ Responsible for identifying Risk profile of Countries, Sovereigns, Large Corporate & MNCs.
§ Responsible for fixing the Risk Appetite limits especially on various operations as required and ensure that limits are proposed in line with the Risk Appetite and Bank’s strategy
§ Ensure that the credit risk in the bank asset portfolio is correctly identified, measured, monitored and reported, by evaluating & monitoring current micro economic and macro-economic conditions& scenarios.
§ Develop and update the watch list by using EWI and ensure periodic reporting of the same to relevant stakeholders.
§ Responsible for Loan Review Mechanism (LRM) & Quarterly Classification Report review as per internal and regulatory guidelines along with Independent Credit Control & Monitoring of the pre and post approvals of credit proposals.
Key Accomplishments:
§ Established a strong risk management culture which promotes good analysis, judgment, flexibility and balance between risk and reward along with CRO. Manage Enterprise Risk Management framework for the organization along with CRO.
§ Automated Operational Risk incident reporting system and its analysis
§ Established a maiden Fraud Risk Management Framework in the Bank along with the CRO
§ Streamlined and automated various market/liquidity risk reports especially LCR/NSFR, MAL SAL, etc.
§ Provided key & strategic inputs to Business Heads in defining the portfolio strategies in terms of concentration parameters considered relevant for the businesses.
§ Appointed in various Top Management Committees as member & Secretary.
§ Developed risk dashboards and combined all enterprise information for regular monitoring
§ Developed a proactive and professional approach to risk management, support the development of a bank wide culture with regard to risk awareness and assessment, promote the understanding of the three lines of defense business model and support the improvement in procedural integrity.
§ Ensured minimum observations from regulators & auditors by aligning the Bank’s policies& process with regulatory requirements. Also ensured that they are kept up-to-date,
§ Reduced and kept minimum number of non-performing loans in the banks’ portfolio by periodic monitoring, Loan Review Mechanism & Quarterly classification / SICR (IFRS9) reporting.

Assistant Vice President - Credit Risk Audit (Reporting to the Country Head - Credit Risk Audit)

Key Responsibilities:
§ Conduct Risk Based Internal Audit on Wholesale Banking & Retail Business, Risk and Credit Operations Units.
§ Leading a team of Auditors for conducting audit throughout the country.
§ Conduct Audits in line with the regulatory guidelines on Loan Review Mechanism and the auditing standards.
§ Responsible for preparation of audit plan and timely & qualitative completion of internal audits of the business segments as per the annual audit plan.
§ Ensuring that adequate assurance is provided for effective controls against Credit, Legal, Operational, Financial, Reputation, Regulatory and Fraud risks.
§ Effective reporting of the exceptions by way of timely issuance of Internal Audit reports covering all the audit findings, their resolution and target dates.
§ Review of credit risk audit reports submitted by the credit audit team.
§ Assist in Planning, designing and implementation of risk based audit plans to ensure safety and soundness of the Bank.
§ Ensure to keep relevant processes benchmarked to Best Practices and peer banks.
§ Ensure to keep Audit Procedure Manual and checklists current and updated.
§ Devise audit checklists for use of internal/concurrent Auditors and test products along with processes/procedures to foresee pitfall and bottlenecks and ensure these are audited/resolved
§ Provide improvement/ suggestions to existing process / systems to line management.
§ Provide oversight, regular update & appropriate review to the Concurrent Audit process/reports.

Senior Manager - Senior Credit Risk Analyst (Reporting to Dy Vice President - Centre Head)

Senior Credit Risk Analyst for Corporate & Retail Customers from various segments like Manufacturing, Trading, Service, Infrastructures

Key Responsibilities:
§ Conduct detailed analysis of Qualitative & Quantitative strength of the Borrower & Industry
§ Conduct feasibility study of the proposed Project, Business, Market & Industry. Analysis of Risk involved in the Business/ Project like, Industry, Business, management, Financial, Project, Collateral, Operational Risk and assigning adequate rating for the borrower
§ Detailed analysis of financial statements, i.e. Balance Sheet, P&L. Comparison of all the financial indicators, especially, performance & profitability ratios, Liquidity Ratio, Leverage ratio, Operational ratios, etc.
§ Analysis & Comparison of Projected Financial Statement, Fund flow & cash flow statement
§ Calculation of Debt Service Coverage Ratio, Sensitivity, Break Even Analysis & Maximum Permissible Bank Finance
§ Assign risk rating as per stipulated policies through Rating Tools from CRISIL
§ Preparation of Appraisal note & recommendation of Funded & Non Funded (Working Capital & Terms Loans) in line with Bank's & other statutory bodies' policies.
§ Maintaining TAT for Credit Appraisal of all new, enhancement/Renewal proposals
§ Updating the team members with Central Bank policies/regulations/CIBIL checks/Central Bank Ratings/credit eligibility calculations.
§ NPA Containment- Controlling Incremental NPA in the portfolio net of recoveries/upgradation
§ Timely review of the accounts & Monitoring the conduct of the account
§ Ensuring that risk management policies, standards and practices are adhered to by the Business

Branch Manager (Reporting to Deputy Vice President - Cluster Head)

Key Responsibilities:
§ Leading a team of 15 members including Operation Managers, Relationship Managers & Personal Bankers.
§ Directing all operational aspects including distribution, customer service, human resources, administration and sales in accordance with the bank's objectives. Providing training, coaching, development and motivation for bank personnel.
§ Responsible for meeting the branch targets and adherence to all guidelines and regulatory requirements by managing retail & wholesale asset & liability products.
§ Managing and monitoring performance of all the sales resources and attrition control of customers
§ Ensure all complaints and issues are resolved within the TAT.
§ Ensure Internal & External Audit Compliance
§ Ensure adequate training on products, services & policies for on role staff & off role staff and productivity. Make staff aware of various policies of the bank.
§ Ensure proper Monitoring mechanism to be in place for all processes
§ Enhancing the value of existing accounts & Retention of existing portfolio
§ Cost Management and staff productivity

Credit Risk Manager / Branch Head
Reporting to the Deputy General Manager - Regional Head/Department Head

Key Responsibilities:
§ Credit Risk Manager for all Business segments, i.e. Project Finance, Investment Banking, Financial Institutes, Large & Mid Corporate, SME & Retail, Sovereign & Non Sovereign having credit facilities ranging from INR.1 Crore to INR. 600 Crore
§ Conduct Credit Risk Rating, Credit Research and Analysis.
§ Conduct Credit Risk Audit, Monitoring & Review of the accounts.
§ Loan documentation, Valuation of Security, Management/ follow up of NPA / doubtful accounts
§ Core team member for developing Credit Policies, procedure and other operational manuals,
§ Core member of the team that assesses and modifies the rating models for the Bank.
§ Core team of the bank for the automation of the entire credit process in the bank.
§ Project Coordinator for ISO 9001-2008 implementation in the Credit Department.
§ Directing all operational aspects including distribution, customer service, human resources, administration and sales in accordance with the bank's objectives. Providing training, coaching, development and motivation for bank personnel.
§ Ensuring complete understanding of and adherence to local laws & regulations, Internal & external audit guidelines.
§ Conducting training and workshops relating to credit for newly recruited staff.
§ Branch Head of advance oriented branch with a book size of INR.200 Crore