BS People: S Durgashankar

A true soldier

When the Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) group named S Durgashankar as the chief financial officer of Mahindra Satyam in June 2009, the task was him was gargantuan. It involved collecting 30 terrabytes of information, checking over 2 million emails, securing and mining information from over 300 computer hard discs and verifying over 200 bank accounts to bring order to the financial system at the fraud-hit IT outsourcing firm.

“Through September 2010 (when the Mahindra Satyam management announced the financials of the beleaguered company), we were fighting a battle, racing against time, trying to get everything done within the stipulated time,” recollects this ‘true soldier’ of the M&M group.

Durga, as he is fondly called, is a chartered accountant with over 25 years of experience in various facets of finance – as a banker, corporate treasurer, head of mergers and acquisitions and group CFO. Before joining Mahindra Satyam, he was group CFO with the KSK Group, which has interests in power development and generation. During his tenure, KSK successfully listed on the Indian bourses and its IPO was over-subscribed despite turbulent market conditions.

“His ability to motivate a distraught team during the crisis and complete the restatement of our accounts in a record time, speaks volumes of Durga’s efforts in rebuilding Mahindra Satyam,” says Mahindra Satyam Chairman Vineet Nayyar.

Having accomplished the mission assigned to him, Durga relocated to M&M from March 1, 2011. And, Vasant Krishnan, a chartered accountant with over 25 years of experience and a senior vice-president in M&M, came on board of Mahindra Satyam.