An overwhelming 99.94 per cent of shareholders have approved the reappointment of Vishwavir Ahuja as the managing director and chief executive for the fourth term beginning June this year. Ahuja joined the bank in 2010 from Bank of America and has been the force behind the successful listing of the lender in August 2016 and driving its balance sheet by mani-fold.

Though the board had in January this year cleared his fourth three-year term till June 2024, the Reserve Bank in June had only cleared his reappointment for only one year beginning June 2021.

According to the results of the voting held at the September 21 annual general meeting, as much as 99.94 per cent of shareholders who participated in the voting favoured his reappointment as the managing director and chief executive of the mid-sized lender.

Ahuja, a veteran with close to 35 years of experience, joined RBL in 2010 and has been successful in transforming it into a vibrant, new-age bank. Before joining the bank, he headed Bank of America India from 2001 to 2009.

Under his leadership at RBL, its business has grown 46-fold and advanced over 50 times, and its net profit has steadily grown from Rs 12 crore in FY11 to Rs 508 crore in FY21, while customer base has grown from just about 2.5 lakh in FY11 to around 1 crore now.

The bank employs 17,000 people now, up from 700 when he took over.

The RBL counter gained more than 1.8 per cent to close at Rs 179 on the BSE, whose benchmark declined marginally.