NAME: KUNDAPUR VAMAN KAMATH AGE: 58 DESIGNATION: Managing Director & CEO GROUP: ICICI Bank Ltd

The man is undoubtedly India's first star banker, receiving, as he does, media coverage and adulation at a par with top industry captains and software czars. Reason: he's credited with transforming ICICI Ltd, another stodgy development financial institution till the early 90s, into a financial services powerhouse. Kundapur Vaman Kamath spearheaded ICICI's conversion into a commercial bank-it is now the country's largest in the private sector-its massive retail thrust and its rush into the lucrative, but under-penetrated small and medium enterprises (SME) sector. His latest play: taking ICICI Bank international.

In the last three years, he has built an international presence in 12 countries; the bank has three wholly-owned subsidiaries in Russia, UK and Canada. The share of international business in its balance sheet: 15 per cent. By 2008, this is expected to grow to 25 per cent. Kamath is very clear about his international strategy. Instead of dissipating his energies competing with multinational banks on their home turfs, he is focussing on India-related opportunities among non-resident Indians. He has also identified the SME segment as a priority area. The logic: this de-risks his customer base at a time when large corporate houses, the bread and butter business of most banks, are increasingly lowering their exposure to the Indian banking sector and raising cheap funds abroad. Kamath, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, joined the Project Finance Division of ICICI in 1971, and has, over the years, headed various departments such as leasing, venture capital and credit rating. In 1988, he joined the Asian Development Bank and was in charge of handling various social projects in South-East Asia. This gave him crucial international exposure. Eight years later, he returned to ICICI as Managing Director and CEO, and set about bringing it closer to retail customers. His other achievements: brokering the partition agreement between Mukesh and Anil Ambani; and genuinely promoting gender equality at ICICI Bank. Six of its top managers are women; it's a record not matched even by the leading multinationals in the country. This, obviously, could not have happened without the active support of the man in the corner room. But then, Kamath has always been ahead of the curve.