Eight candidates interviewed for two LIC MD posts

Eight candidates have appeared for the interview conducted for two posts of managing director at the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC).
The interviews were held on November 9 in the national capital, LIC sources said.
While one post of MD fell vacant following the superannuation of S B Mainak in February, another one is likely to be created once the government appoints one of the two sitting MDs as chairman of the state-owned company. In September, interview for another post of MD was conducted.
Officially, LIC has four MD posts and two of them are lying vacant. One more vacancy may be created as and when the government promotes one of the two MDs as the chairman.

Currently, only two MDs are at LIC--VK Sharma and Usha Sangwan after S K Roy resigned as the chairman in June, two years ahead of his retirement and was subsequently relieved on September 17.
The candidates who appeared for the MD posts interview include, Rajesh Kandwal (who is looking after LIC's operations in Bahrain), V Venugopal (zonal manager, Mumbai), Vinay Sah (director, marketing), Sharad Srivastava (head, personnel), Sarojini Dikhale (CEO, LIC MF), Sunita Sharma (CEO, LIC Housing Finance), K Ganesh (head, customer relationship management) and M R Kumar (head, pension & group schemes).

Among these candidates, Kandwal and Venugopal had also appeared for two rounds of interviews -- one for the chairman's post and another for MD -- which were conducted in New Delhi on September 22-23.

The other candidates who had appeared for the interview for the chairman's post on September 22, include both the MDs -- Sharma and Sangwan-- and the ED, Hemant Bhargava.
Interestingly, Bhargava, Kandwal and Venugopal had also appeared for the interview for the post of MD, held on September 23.
Even as the candidates had been called for the November 9 interview, according to their seniority, Hemant Bhargava was not called this time. It is assumed that he might have been selected for MD's post already.
However, the government is yet to declare the names of the selected candidates for the posts of three MDs.

In a significant change in the panelists for the interviews held on November 9, Thomas Mathew, who is currently heading the India operations of global reinsurer RGA, was replaced by G N Bajpai, who had earlier served as the chairman of both LIC and the markets watchdog Sebi. Mathew had earlier served as acting-chairman of the corporation.
Similarly, V Ramaswamy (former non-life member at Irda) was replaced by Mathew Verghese in the panel, who is currently associated with the Shriram Group.