Alpha Ideas

Disclosure:I am market making in the shares of RBL Bank

Bankers said sometimes, the opportunity to build a business from scratch encouraged them to leave cushy jobs at multinational corporations and take up assignments in relatively smaller banks.

In 2009, Vishwavir Ahuja joined Ratnakar Bank (now RBL Bank) as managing director and CEO, after spending about a decade as Bank of America’s India CEO. “It was really a question of what I could do next. It is a very important question for someone who is 49 years old and has been a chief executive for about 10 years. I had two choices—either move into a bigger role globally or build an institution that would have a meaningful impact on the Indian economy. The latter was far more attractive, as I had no interest in leaving India. Therefore, when the opportunity came, I said ‘let’s do it’,” Ahuja told Business Standard.