Best of the Week: HDFC Bank’s CEO exit exposes a bigger succession problem

For nearly three decades, Sashidhar Jagdishan was the quintessential HDFC Bank insider, rising from a finance manager in 1996 to succeed Aditya Puri as CEO in 2020. Now, as he prepares to retire on 26 October after deciding against a third term, Jagdishan’s exit is forcing India’s largest private lender to confront both its immediate leadership challenge and a deeper question. Does it have enough bench strength for the next era of banking?

Jagdishan’s six-year tenure included the landmark HDFC-HDFC Bank merger, completed in 2023, but the promised benefits have taken longer to emerge. Margins and returns remain under pressure, the bank’s shares have fallen more than 28% this year, and investors continue to wait for the enlarged balance sheet to deliver stronger profitability. Meanwhile, governance concerns around the Dubai branch, Credit Suisse AT-1 bonds, a state agency’s deposits and alleged mis-selling have added to the unease. The abrupt resignation of chairman Atanu Chakraborty earlier this year, followed by an external review that found no evidence substantiating his broader concerns, only intensified scrutiny.

The leadership reset initially cheered investors, with the stock rising as much as 2.7% intraday. It eventually closed 1.5% lower, suggesting the market sees Jagdishan’s departure as only part of the problem. Analysts say the next CEO will have to improve return on equity, lower funding costs, accelerate merger synergies and communicate more clearly with investors. HDFC Bank currently trades at a significant discount to ICICI Bank, leaving room for a credible turnaround.

The immediate complication is time. With less than two months before Jagdishan’s term ends, the board has to identify a successor and secure RBI approval, a process that has historically taken anywhere from 35 days to more than a year. Deputy managing director Kaizad Bharucha, a longtime insider, is widely seen as the leading internal candidate and could serve as an interim CEO. The bank is also expected to consider external candidates, potentially bringing a fresh perspective.

But HDFC Bank’s scramble points to a problem far bigger than one vacancy. Private banks are entering an era of more frequent CEO transitions, after years when leaders such as Puri, K.V. Kamath and Uday Kotak stayed in charge for decades. Mint’s analysis of 27 banks found that 52% of private-bank CEOs who left office between 2017 and 2026 had served for five years or less. Only about a quarter stayed beyond 10 years.

That raises uncomfortable questions about succession planning. Headhunters say banks have plenty of specialists in areas such as retail, finance, credit and risk, but fewer leaders with the cross-functional experience needed to run an entire bank. Long-serving CEOs can also unintentionally make succession harder by concentrating institutional knowledge and decision-making around themselves.

For HDFC Bank, therefore, the next CEO is not merely a replacement for Jagdishan. The choice will test whether the bank can build a leadership pipeline that does not depend on a handful of familiar names. The new chief will inherit a huge franchise, but also a credibility problem: convincing investors that the bank can finally turn its post-merger scale into better returns, while tightening governance and preparing for leadership transitions that may no longer be once-in-a-generation events.

On to the best of Mint’s work from this week.

Tata succession search hits a trust roadblock

The Tata Group’s search for N. Chandrasekaran’s successor remains stuck, prompting Tata Trusts chair Noel Tata and two trustees of Sir Ratan Tata Trust to approach Maharashtra’s charity commissioner for permission to move ahead. The request seeks approval for SRTT to nominate a member to the five-person selection panel, as well as to conduct other pending trust business. SRTT has been barred from holding board meetings amid a dispute over its composition. The deadlock has already forced Tata Sons to adjourn its AGM. Tata executives are reluctant to approach the courts, fearing a longer legal battle could further delay the succession process.

India’s GDP looks strong, but the numbers need a closer look

India’s 7.8% GDP growth in Q1FY27 has sparked a debate over whether the economy is really growing that fast. The headline number is only a first estimate and will be revised as more data arrives, especially after a major methodological overhaul. The new GDP series has also cut the economy’s estimated size, correcting what experts saw as overestimation under the old series. But claims that growth was just 2.6% are equally flawed because they compare figures from different GDP series. The bigger question remains: even if growth is 7.8%, is it translating into better living standards?

Auditors are hiring AI experts to keep up with India Inc

India’s biggest audit firms are building teams that look very different from a decade ago, as more than 600 companies prepare to change auditors by FY29. Chartered accountants still make up 70-75% of audit teams, but data scientists, cybersecurity experts, IT auditors and fraud specialists are increasingly joining them. The reason? Companies now run on bots, AI, automated reconciliations and mountains of data, creating risks traditional audits may miss. Boards are also becoming more selective, assessing audit quality, technology capabilities and regulatory track records. In this once-in-a-decade churn, the firm with the smartest multidisciplinary team could win the mandate.

Wipro's new tool watches your laptop, not just your timesheet

Log in, or your leave might get docked. Wipro is rolling out TimeScope, software that tracks activity on company laptops, including for employees working from home, and flags days that go quiet. No login, no leave record, no client-site visit? That could mean an automatic leave deduction, though employees can contest it. Wipro joins TCS and Cognizant in adopting such tools, as IT firms lean harder into productivity tracking amid AI-driven, outcome-based billing. The company says it won't track keystrokes or screen content, only time spent on tools like Word, Excel and Chrome. Wipro's margins have slipped for two straight quarters, and revenue has declined for three straight years. As one analyst put it, AI means fewer people doing the same work, so firms need proof employees are actually delivering.

Why India's credit rating has barely moved in 20 years

India has been stuck at the lowest investment-grade rating, BBB-, for two decades. But is India being rated unfairly, or is there more to the story? Turns out, sovereign ratings aren't just about GDP size or growth. They weigh fiscal discipline, per capita income, external debt, and institutional stability, together. That's why Italy and India share a rating despite wildly different economies, and why India matches Sharjah, a place with ten times its per capita GDP. India's low tax collection and high per capita income gap remain real weaknesses. But there's a case for bias too. Studies show developing economies get judged more harshly on the same metrics as richer nations. The reassuring bit is that markets already seem to trust India more than agencies do, pricing its debt closer to an A-minus.

India is building its own AI chip

Back in 1985, the US blocked India from buying a supercomputer over nuclear fears. India's answer was to build its own, C-Dac did it by 1991. History is repeating itself. When the US restricted access to Nvidia chips in early 2025, India again turned to C-Dac, this time to build a sovereign AI chip. Matching Nvidia-level performance on a 2nm node, with just $200 million over five years. As of August 2026, the first designs entered trial manufacturing at TSMC, with production targeted for 2029 and deployment by 2030, faster than China's Kunlun chip took.

Will it ever be commercially competitive? Experts are skeptical. But that may not be the point. As IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw put it, this is about strategic autonomy, not market share, a fallback if geopolitics turns hostile again.

Soon, you might register a company in hours, not weeks

Right now, setting up a company in India takes 10-15 days. Shutting one down? Nearly two months. The corporate affairs ministry wants to fix that, with a reform blueprint that could bring incorporation down to just hours, using AI, automation, and smarter data-sharing across filing systems. Could this finally end India's paperwork nightmare? The plan includes rationalising forms, expanding automatic approvals, and calibrating compliance rules by a company's size and risk, so small businesses aren't buried under the same rules as large ones. This builds on the Corporate Laws Amendment Bill, 2026, which proposes decriminalising civil offences and easing CSR and audit requirements for some firms. Most of these changes won't even need Parliament's approval, just tweaks to existing rules.

Inside India's booming micro-dining movement

A door with no handle. A basement that turns into someone's living room. Nine strangers, nine courses, no idea what's coming next. Welcome to Cavity, one of a growing wave of micro-dining spots redefining how India eats out. From Bengaluru's eight-seater ramen counter to a remote Himalayan destination restaurant near Kasauli, these spaces seat as few as four and charge ₹5,000- ₹12,000 a head, yet sell out in minutes. Diners aren't just paying for food, they're paying for proximity. Watching chefs work, hearing the story behind each ingredient, feeling like they're at a dinner party rather than a restaurant. For restaurateurs, the economics work too, lower overheads, premium pricing, and a cult following that money can't easily buy. As one chef put it, most fine dining has become forgettable. Micro dining is betting that intimacy, not opulence, is what people actually remember.