Kundapur Vaman Kamath (born 2 December 1947) is an Indian banker who, as chief executive of ICICI from 1996 to 2009, turned a development lender into India’s largest private-sector bank and a pioneer of retail and electronic banking. He was later chairman of Infosys, the first president of the New Development Bank set up by the BRICS countries, and chairman of Jio Financial Services. He received the Padma Bhushan in 2008.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Kundapur Vaman Kamath |
| Born | 2 December 1947, Mangalore, Karnataka, India |
| Age | 78 |
| Occupation | Banker |
| Posts | MD and CEO, ICICI Bank (1996–2009); President, New Development Bank (2015–2020) |
| Education | Karnataka Regional Engineering College, Surathkal (B.E. Mechanical); IIM Ahmedabad (PGDM, 1971) |
| Spouse | Rajalakshmi Kamath |
| Children | 2 |
| Honour | Padma Bhushan (2008) |
Early Life
Kamath grew up in Mangalore, where his family ran a tile business and his father was active in local politics. He studied engineering at Surathkal and management at Ahmedabad.
Career
He joined the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India in 1971 in project finance and helped computerise it. From 1988 he spent eight years at the Asian Development Bank in Manila, working on projects in China, Indonesia and other countries.
He returned as head of ICICI when lending to industry was no longer enough to sustain it. He pushed into home and car loans and credit cards, built a large ATM network and internet banking when most Indian banks had neither, and bought smaller banks, including Bank of Madura. In 2002 he merged the parent institution into its own subsidiary, ICICI Bank, creating a universal bank. He also became known for giving young managers large responsibilities; many heads of Indian financial firms, among them Chanda Kochhar, came up under him. He was non-executive chairman until 2015.
He chaired Infosys from 2011 to 2013, after N. R. Narayana Murthy first retired. In 2015 he moved to Shanghai as the first president of the New Development Bank, which lends for infrastructure in emerging economies, and served a five-year term. He then became chairman of the government’s new infrastructure lender, the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development, and in 2022 of Jio Financial Services, part of Mukesh Ambani‘s Reliance group.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was K. V. Kamath born?
K. V. Kamath was born on 2 December 1947 in Mangalore, Karnataka, India and is 78 years old.
What is K. V. Kamath’s occupation?
Occupation: Banker.
Featured image: K. V. Kamath (left), then president-designate of the BRICS New Development Bank, calls on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, New Delhi, 28 May 2015. Photo by Prime Minister’s Office, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
