I have not seen a more admired boss – feared, hated, and loved! What an amazing run he has had in the past 24 years – from 1994. I guess I opened my account sometime in 1998/9. Yes I have had service issues, but I must admit that the bank has problem solving skills too.

Mr. Aditya Puri, Managing Director of HDFC Bank Ltd., has been named in the Barron’s list of Top 30 Global CEOs. The international publication has included Mr. Puri in this prestigious list for the fourth consecutive year.

In its 14^th edition, the list of the world’s best CEOs includes Mr. Jeff Bezos of Amazon; Mr. Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway; Mr. Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase; Mr. Larry Page of Alphabet; Mr. Reed Hastings of Netflix; Mr. Satya Nadella of Microsoft; and Mr. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

This year, the magazine divided the CEOs into three categories: Visionary Founders, Growth Leaders, and Turnaround Experts. Mr. Puri has been featured in the Growth Leaders category.
Highlighting growth under Mr. Puri’s leadership, the magazine writes: 
· One-year total return: 25.2 per cent
· Annualized returns (since inception): 24.0 per cent
· Five-year profit growth: 19.8 per cent
· Market value ($ Bn): 77.6

In its profile of Mr. Puri, the magazine says, “He turned a start-up into a banking giant, and helped bring Indians into the modern financial era. Even after 24 years at the helm, Puri, 67, elicits effusive praise from investors, with descriptions ranging from “one of the most impressive CEOs we have come across” to a “great man who has built a great bank.” The career banker methodically built a start-up into India’s second-largest private-sector bank by market value. He reliably minted money by serving the country’s burgeoning middle class, and avoided pitfalls like the bad corporate loans and governance scandals now tripping up rivals. Although Puri shuns personal electronic devices and email, he has embraced technology at the bank, using it to tap the country’s millions of unbanked citizens. The goal, he says, is to offer anything related to money, whether for paying bills, securing a mortgage, or investing, at the click of a button, as effortlessly as one downloads movies from Netflix. In this way, he hopes to stay ahead of any Amazon entry into financial services.” 

The magazine looks at a history of strong leadership over a long period while compiling the list. It screens the S&P 500 index and 250 largest non-U.S. companies and evaluates them on factors such as revenue, earnings growth, and share-price performance over a five-year period. It also moves about a third of its previous year’s picks off the list to feature newcomers.

Mr. Aditya Puri has been the Managing Director of HDFC Bank since its inception in 1994. During his 24 years at the helm, Mr. Puri has created a culture of excellence in the Bank. A great advocate of technology and convenience banking, he is credited with embracing digital banking platforms to change the way banking is done in India. Mr. Puri has been an instrumental part of the transformation, launching the bank’s ‘Go Digital – Bank Aapki Muthhi Mein’ campaign in December 2014.