HDFC Bank seems to have encountered an unusual problem: a CEO announces his exit faster than a board can find his replacement. With the Subhash Chandra verdict still reverberating and the bank taking a bruising, Sashidhar Jagdishan’s decision not to seek another term seems to have sent the board scurrying into an unscheduled meeting to persuade him to stay. Which raises an impolite governance question, “Was the succession plan actually a plan — or merely a document waiting for a crisis to give it a purpose?”
Top-level executive succession planning has long been inconsistent among the worlds’ corporations and even in large MNCs; it is often vague and reactive on who could be next. Or, perhaps the talent planning and development for top roles are well in place in many organisations, but what is missing might be the chief executive succession plan. In your own organization, how current and actionable are your emergency succession plans? The COVID-19 crisis had shaken up a lot of certainties about how effective executive succession planning really is. Is the HDFC board plans in jeopardy because of the loan assets and a class action suit in the USA?
