Board of Directors

Born on 14th November 1951, Shri Polali Jayarama Bhat is a Post Graduate in Chemistry (with First Rank) from University of Mysore. He is a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB). He has banking experience of over 4 decades. He joined Karnataka Bank as an Officer in the year 1973 and over the period of time got promoted to various positions. In the year 2005, he was promoted as Chief General Manager of the Bank. He was the Managing Director & CEO of the Bank for the period from July 2009 to April 2017. Presently he is the Part- time Non-Executive Chairman of the Bank with effect from April 2017.

Shri P. Jayarama Bhat has rich experience in all the facets of banking operations. He is also on the Board of Universal Sompo General Insurance Company Ltd., a joint venture of the Bank.

He was a member on Management Committee of the Indian Banks‟ Association (IBA) from August 2010 to August 2014, during which period he was also the Chairman of „IBA Committee on Member Private Sector Banks‟. Presently, he is the chairman of the Governing Board of Southern India Banks‟ Staff Training College (SIBSTC), Bengaluru.

During his tenure as Managing Director, the Bank had secured many awards in the field of IT, CSR, MSME instituted by IDRBT, IBA, CIMSME, ASSOCHAM etc.

Shri P. Jayarama Bhat has been conferred with several awards including “Aryabhata International Award”, “Outstanding Manager Award” by Mangalore Management Association, “A. Shama Rao Memorial Outstanding Achievement Award”, T. A. Pai Memorial “Shrestha Banker” award by "Delhi Kannadiga‟, “CEO with HR Orientation” by Asia Pacific HRM Congress, “New Year Award-2015” constituted jointly by Manipal University, Academy of General Education and Syndicate Bank, “Yedthare Manjayya Shetty” award constituted by Yedthare Manjayya Shetty Memorial & Charitable Trust, Kundapura and prestigious “Vandana Award” by Rotary Club of Mangaluru Central and Rotaract Club of Mangaluru City and “Suraj Seva Award-2017” by Suraj Educational & Charitable Trust ®, Mudipu for his contribution in the field of banking. He was honoured with “Shri Krishnanugraha Prashasthi” by Shri Shri Vishweshwa Theertha Swamiji of Pejaavar Mutt, Udupi, during his fifth paryaya festival for his invaluable contribution to the field of Banking. He has been honoured with „Eminent Aloysian Alumni Awards‟ by St. Aloysius Institutions Management and St. Aloysius College Alumni Association, Mangaluru. International Lions Seva Association has honoured him with „Lions Sadhaka Puraskar - 2018-19‟.

Shri Mahabaleshwara M.S. took charge as Managing Director & CEO of Karnataka Bank on 15.04.2017. After successful completion of his first term of three years, RBI re-appointed him for a further period of three years with effect from 15.04.2020. He has over 37 years of banking experience both at operational and administrative levels. The Bank is implementing its most sought-after wholistic transformation exercise ‘KBL-VIKAAS’ under his leadership aiming to position the Bank as ‘Big, Strong and Vibrant’ & the ‘Digital Bank of Future’ in the years to come. Further, he had played a pivotal role in the ‘Digital Banking’ & ‘BPR’ (Business Process Reengineering) initiatives of the Bank on earlier occasions. The Bank has surpassed “Rupees One Lakh Twenty Seven Thousand Crore Business” and also achieved a milestone of more than 11 million customers under his able leadership.

He has handled key responsibilities in Branches, Regional Offices and Corporate Office and has successfully handled many key portfolios such as Human Resources, Credit, Corporate Planning & Development, IT & MIS, Treasury & Accounts. During his career as Branch Head and Regional Head, he had won many prestigious awards including “Chairman’s Club” membership for his outstanding performance. He acquired abundant banking experience by attending various seminars / conferences and extensively travelled across the country and abroad.

He has done his Masters in Agricultural Sciences (M.Sc. Agri), with specialisation in Agronomy, from the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Bengaluru. He is also a Certificated Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB) and holds Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) from St. Aloysius College, Mangaluru.

Further, he is also associated with the following institutions / organisations:

• Member of the Managing Committee of IBA (Indian Banks’ Association), Mumbai.
• Member of the Governing Council of IIBF (Indian Institute of Banking & Finance), Mumbai.
• Non-Executive Chairman of M/s KBL Services Ltd., Bengaluru, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank.
• The president of the Bankers’ Club, Mangaluru.

Considering his invaluable contribution in the field of banking and also to the society, he has been honoured with various awards and accolades by several prestigious institutions / organisations. Major among them are:

• ‘CEO of The Year’ award presented by the ‘World Leadership Congress & Awards’, Mumbai.
• ‘CEO with HR Orientation Award’ at the 27th ‘World HRD Congress Summit’ presented by ‘ET Now’ in the year 2019.
• ‘Distinguished Alumni Award’ presented by ‘Alumni Association of University of Agricultural Sciences’, Bengaluru (UASB).
• ‘Aryabhata International Award of 2017’ presented by ‘Aryabhata Cultural Organisation (Regd.)’, Bengaluru.
• ‘Shree Krishnanugraha Prashasti’ presented by his Holiness Shri Shri Vishwesha Theertha Swamiji, Pejavar Mutt, Udupi.
• ‘A. Shama Rao Memorial Outstanding Achievement Award - 2021' presented by 'A.Shama Rao Foundation', Mangaluru.

Mrs Usha Ganesh, IAS, aged 65 years, has been the Director of the Bank since 31.7.2013. She is a post graduate in M.Sc (Botany), M.Sc (Econ.), LLB, and has undergone Advanced Training in Administration and Management of Change from Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad and Management Development Centre, London. She has rich experience in the field of Law, Finance, Agriculture and Rural Economy, Cooperation & SSI. As an IAS (RR 1973) of Karnataka Cadre from July 1973 to July 2008, she has held various posts from Assistant Commissioner, Chickmagalur, Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore District, to Managing Director of KSCARD Bank (SLDB) and Additional Chief Secretary and Chairman of Krishna Bhagya Jala Nigam Ltd.

Mrs Usha Ganesh was on the Boards of Karnataka State Co-operative Agr. and Rural Development (KSCARD) Bank as Managing Director from June 95 to June 96 and Karnataka State Co-op. Apex Bank Ltd., as Director from June 95 to June 96. She had represented KSCARD Bank in all India and Zonal Conferences of NABARD, and also at International Co-operative Alliance Seminar at Sydney, Australia during October 1995. She has Functioned as Administrative Member, Karnataka Administrative Tribunal from August 2008 - July 2013 in the rank of a Judge of High Court for 5 years, Mrs Usha Ganesh has also functioned as a Quasi Judicial Authority and Appellate Authority in different posts for 9 years. 

Mr. Rammohan Rao Belle,former MD and CEO of SBI General Insurance Co Ltd., a joint venture between the State Bank of India (SBI) and Insurance Australia Group (IAG), joined the Board of our Bank on 21.10.2013. He started his banking career in 1974 in SBI. During a span of 38 years with SBI, he held several important banking and IT assignments in India and UK. He has hands on experience in retail, corporate and international banking, banking operations, credit, risk management and IT. He was also involved in setting up of CIBIL, the first Credit Information Bureau in India, which was a joint venture of SBI, HDFC, Dun & Bradstreet and TransUnion. He is a mentor of an IT start up company named Catyeus Inc, Calgary, Canada.

Mr Rammohan Rao Belle holds a Master's degree in Physics from IIT, Madras and PGDM from IIM, Bangalore. He is also a Certified Associate of Indian Institute ofBankers. 

Mr.Rammohan Rao Belle is a Director on the Board of the Bank since October 21, 2013.

Mr. Keshav Krishnarao Desai, aged 55 years, holds BE (Mech.) graduation. He has been into the automobile business for the past 32 years. Presently he is the Managing Partner of Desai Group of concerns established in the year 1939 having its head office at Hubli and other offices at all the major places of North Karnataka region namely-Gadag, Haveri, Ranebennur, Koppal, Sindhanur, Raichur, Kustagi, Vijayapur and Bagalkot. The Group has dealerships for the products of TAFE Limited and FORCE MOTORS Limited. He is also into real estate business of constructing residential/commercial complexes for the last 25 years. He is the Managing Trustee of Shri Bindurao Desai Trust which owns Geeta Mandir, in Hubli. He is the trustee of Lokshikshana Trust, publisher of the daily Kannada Newspaper Samyukta Karnataka, Karmaveera and Kasturi.

Mr. Keshav Krishnarao Desai is Director on the Board of the Bank Since February 19, 2016.

Mrs. Mythily Ramesh, hailing from Bengaluru and aged 52 years, has more than 28 years of experience in her career. She completed her BE Computer Science from College of Engineering, Guindy and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. She is also a certified CPM and CPIM specialist. In her 20 year successful stint in Wipro she grew from a Customer support executive to a Senior Vice President. Her career spans product management, marketing, Business Head and Quality. As a certified Black Belt, she drove the Six Sigma initiative in Wipro and was successful in moving the organization from 1.7 Sigma to 4.7 Sigma and reducing the order to collection cycle from 365 days+ to 120 days.

With a passion for entrepreneurship, she was the CEO of a start up in Wipro called 01markets and built a successful business around e-procurement. She then moved to the Corporate office to handle Mergers & Acquisitions, Business Development and Innovation. As part of Innovation, she seeded multiple new service areas which have grown into large businesses for Wipro.

In her last stint in Wipro in BPO, she was responsible for pre-sales and solutioning, product management, transition, platform BPO, BPO Consulting and procurement, BPO operations etc.

In 2006 and 2007 she was adjudged one of the 25 most Powerful women in India by India Today and Dataquest. She has been profiled many times in Business Today and Business World as a successful woman IT professional. In 2010, she and a few ex-Wipro colleagues started a social entrepreneurship firm NextWealth focusing on IT/BPO services from small towns in a unique distributed delivery model. Their mission is to create 10,000 jobs in the small towns. She is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of NextWealth.

She serves on the board of WeP Solutions Ltd., WeP Digital as an Independent Director and is a member of the Steering Committee of “IIMPACT” an NGO which focuses on education of the Girl Child.

Mrs. Mythily Ramesh, is Director on the Board of the Bank since March 14, 2018.

Mr. B R Ashok, FCA, aged 57 years, is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), a professional member of the Indian Institute of Insolvency Professionals of ICAI (IIIPI) and a 1st Rank holder in the post qualification Diploma Course on Information Systems Audit conducted by the ICAI in December 2002.

He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in the year 1984 having more than 35 years of experience in practice and his areas of expertise include statutory central audit of banks, statutory audit of insurance companies, corporates including public sector undertakings, NGOs and other entities besides advisory, consultancy and taxation assignments.

He also has expertise in the fields of statutory related attestation services, consultancy in direct taxes and FEMA, management advisory services and representation before various adjudicating authorities up to Tribunal level in income-tax. He is a partner in M/s. R K Kumar & Co., Chartered Accountants, Chennai, a partnership firm established in the year 1974.

Mr. B R Ashok, is Director on the Board of the Bank since August 27, 2019.

Justice A V Chandrashekar aged 66 years is a B.Com, LLB graduate who is a Former Judge, High Court of Karnataka and former Judicial Member, Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal. He commenced his career as a practicing advocate in the year 1984 and during the early part of his judicial career he worked as the Additional District & Sessions Judge and Principal District & Sessions Judge in several districts of Karnataka state. He also worked as the Member Secretary, Karnataka State Legal Services Authority (K.S.L.S.A), Director, Karnataka Judicial Academy (K.J.A) and Director, Bangalore Mediation Centre (B.M.C).

In the year 2013, he was appointed as a Judge of the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka and superannuated in the year 2016 after serving in the said capacity for three years. After superannuation, he conducted arbitration proceedings in various cases, including private arbitrations and arbitration cases referred by the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka. Subsequently, he was appointed as a Judicial Member, Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal (K.S.A.T) from 2017 to 2019. He was also the Chairman of the committee constituted by the Karnataka State Child Protection Commission to prepare the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for effective implementation of Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 and the Rules thereunder.

He has also significantly contributed to the academic and training requirement of judicial trainees and while functioning in the capacity of Director, Karnataka Judicial Academy, he coordinated in formulating a training manual for the training of newly recruited civil judges and was also involved in the drafting of the rules governing the Karnataka Arbitration Centre, an initiative of the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka.

He has also published various articles on topics in substantive and procedural laws for the benefit of judges in the district judiciary, including role of judges in upholding the rule of law (published in the Karnataka State Law University journal in the year 2014) and the fundamental duties.

Justice A V Chandrashekar is a Director on the Board of the Bank since August 19, 2020.

Mr. Pradeep Kumar Panja, aged 64 years, is a Post Graduate in Science (Statistics) (M.Sc-Statistics) from University of Madras. He is also a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers. Currently, he is a member on the Board of Directors of companies engaged in the business of real estate, asset reconstruction, software business, cements etc.

He is a career banker, retired as Managing Director (Corporate Banking) of State Bank of India (SBI), the largest bank of the country, in October 2015. During his long association of 39 years with SBI (3 years of which at Board level), he gained rich experience in various areas of banking including corporate and international banking, treasury management, information technology, retail, transaction banking, strategic planning, business development, risk management etc.

He has excellent track record of successfully leading large teams across various business verticals of SBI. He also successfully led the US Operations of SBI as the Country Head-US. He held multiple assignments driving large projects in the Information Technology Wing of SBI. As a Head of IT (Chief Information Officer), he led SBI’s IT strategy, set up India’s largest data warehouse. He also lead the analytics foray of SBI. During his association with SBI he was member of important committees of Directors and was chairman of Risk Management Committee.

Mr. Pradeep Kumar Panja is a Director on the Board of the Bank since August 19, 2020.

Mrs. Uma Shankar, is a former Executive Director of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). She was with RBI for over 37 years in different capacities. Her core competence is in the financial sector supervision, however she has also been responsible for currency management, foreign exchange and the internal accounting and administration.

She is a Post-Graduate in English Literature and a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB) and also has had Executive Education at Columbia Business School, New York (2009 alumni). She was also on the boards of few Public Sector Banks as a RBI nominee.

Mrs. Uma Shankar is a Director on the Board of the Bank since November 1, 2020.

Dr D S Ravindran (PhD), aged 61 years, is a Retd. IFS (Indian Forest Service 1986 Batch) and the former Principal Secretary to the Government Khajane-2, Finance Department, Government of Karnataka with over 34 years of experience in the areas of administration, civil service, research, financial planning, Information Technology, Public Policy Planning & Implementation Process, Renewable Energy etc.

He is a Post Graduate in Agriculture and has pursued Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy & Management (IIMB). He holds PhD in Forest Economics (from University of Wales) and in most of these qualifications earned by him, he stood the first rank.

Over his illustrious career he held various key posts in the Government such as:

• Principal Secretary to the Government, Khajane-2, Finance Department, Government of Karnataka;
• Chief Executive Officer, Centre for e-Governance, Government of Karnataka, Bangalore;
• Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal,
• Project Officer (Forestry), Biomass Energy for Rural India Project, UNDP-GEF Project, Bangalore,
• Conservator of Forests, Kodagu Circle (Karnataka State).

During his tenure as a Chief Executive Officer, Centre for e-Governance, Bangalore he was responsible for conceptualization and implementation of key e-Governance Programmes of Govt. of Karnataka. He was instrumental in the implementation of Data Centre, Networks, AADHAAR, Bangalore One and Karnataka One Citizen Delivery Centres, e-Procurement and HRMS Enterprise Applications thus transforming the way the Government interacts with the citizens. More than 20 projects were implemented during his tenure, to e-enable the Government of Karnataka to take up smooth G2G, G2B, G2C applications.

He implemented and handled AADHAAR in the Karnataka State as the Registrar leading to 3.4 crore enrolments which is more than 50% of the Karnataka State Populace. He developed the concept of “The Karnataka Resident Data Hub”, a platform to link various services of the Government to AADHAAR to facilitate better delivery of services. This model was adopted by the UIDAI for national level scaling. Also, he implemented an innovative Document Management System (DMS) for AADHAAR enrolments. He has received several National Awards for this work. The Karnataka State emerged as number one in the “e-Governance Readiness Index” amongst all the States of India.

During his position held as Principal Secretary to Government of Karnataka, Khajane-2, Finance Department he was responsible for the implementation of a transformative electronic platform for carrying out all the financial transactions of the Government. Large-scale Government Process Engineering was taken up in this project and more than 75000 users were brought on this platform creating a unified Integrated Financial Management System for the Government of Karnataka besides modernizing the State Treasuries System. He also coordinated with different stakeholders such as E-Kuber, 20 Banks, NSDL, Postal Systems, NPCI, Aggregators etc. that lead to more than 330 integrations to enable implementation of real-time and electronic payment and remittance systems and also taking care of proper reconciliation system.

Currently, he is the Consulting Advisor to Treasuries on Khajane-2 since May 2020 advising the Government of Karnataka, Treasuries Department on the Technical and Operational Management of the Integrated Financial Management System, providing both technical and policy inputs for management of the Financial Transactions of entire Government of Karnataka.

He has bagged several awards for his excellence in performance and initiatives. Some of them being:

• National Award for best e-Governance Project for e-Procurement Project, Karnataka, from Government of India (2012),
• National Web Ratna Award (Silver) for the Best Portal for citizen services delivery for Bangalore One, from Government of India (2011),
• Future E-Gov Award at International Conference at Kuala Lumpur for the e-Procurement Project (2011),
• Most Innovative Document Management System, from Unique Identification Authority of India(2011),
• CSI-Nihilent award for the HRMS Project of Government of Karnataka (2010),
• Received Commonwealth Scholarship of UK, a competitive scholarship for Doctoral Studies,
• Recipient Gold Medal for being Topper for the PGPPM, IIM, Bangalore (2007),
• Recipient of 6 Medals, including the Curie Medal for the Topper for securing the I Rank in M.Sc.(Forestry) at IGNFA,

Recipient of 4 Medals for overall best performance for IFS Officers at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussorie.

Dr. D S Ravindran is a Director on the Board of the Bank since April 1, 2021.

Mr. Balakrishna Alse S, a B.Sc (Agri) and CAIIB aged 61 years is a versatile Banker having practical experience in almost all facets of Banking. During his 35 years of tenure at Corporation Bank, he has worked in Agriculture Policy and lending, Credit Sanctions, Credit Risk Management, HR, Integrated Risk Management (as Chief Risk Officer) and Information/Cyber Security (as Chief Information Security Officer). He also had concurrent charge of Chief Vigilance Officer for over 7 months.

In his capacity as Executive Director of Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC), he was overall-in-charge of Corporate Credit, Stressed Assets Management, Recovery, Accounts including Audit & Balance Sheet, Risk Management, Digital Banking, Cyber security, etc. He was an active member of the Team implementing EASE 2 reforms in which OBC stood first amongst mid-sized PSBs. He retired as an Officer on Special Duty at Punjab National Bank (PNB), post amalgamation of OBC with PNB.

He has undergone various trainings programmes at reputed institutions in India and abroad like CAFRAL, NIBM, ISB, SBISTC, Frankfurt Business School and University at Buffalo, USA.

Post superannuation, Mr. Alse has been selected as a member of the Settlement Advisory Committee of Canara Bank.

Mr. Balakrishna Alse S is on the Board of the Bank since May 26, 2021.