Never Pick a career in Finance If you're Not A Hands - On Person

Never Pick a career in Finance If you're Not A Hands - On Person

Starting out in sales with Eicher Mitsubishi to heading its captive finance arm in India, to a stint as Managing Director and Head of Citibank’s SME and asset-based finance business, to being appointed Group Director of Shriram Group, G.S. Sundararajan’s has been one momentous journey. During his tenure at Shriram Group, he was inducted into the Board of Sanlam Emerging Markets (SEM), courtesy his understanding of Asian and other markets. No longer with the ₹600 billion group, Sundararajan is currently on a sabbatical, dividing time between playing golf and mulling over future plans. Legal Era engaged him in a little chat. Here are the excerpts…

Till recently, you were Group Director, Shriram Group. You joined the group as Managing Director of Shriram Capital Ltd. Please take us through the highlights of your eventful journey within the group.

The Shriram stint was a life-changing experience for me professionally. I was able to question a lot of Banking 101 that I had imbibed in Citibank, so much so that at the end of the first year, I realized that there is a whole new workable framework in the financial services space. I was fortunate to be exposed to this, and being an open-minded individual myself, I was able to learn and contribute to the retail, MSME, and insurance businesses of the group in a significant way.

There must have been several challenges holding the top job in a group as large and diversified as Shriram. Please elaborate.