Born on May 18th 1949, T. S. Narayanasami, Chairman and Managing Director, Indian Overseas Bank, has had a distinguished service in the Banking Industry. A Bachelor of Science from Chennai, Narayanasami’s career in banking began when he joined Union Bank of India as a Probationary Officer in 1969. His thirty-one years of service at Union Bank of India, saw him rise in his career at a fast pace with key responsibilities held in branch, regional and zonal offices, covering a vast geographical spread. He was promoted from Scale I directly to Scale III in recognition of his contribution to the bank’s growth. He headed many branches and was Regional and later Zonal Manager covering branches across Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. His spearheading initiatives in customer service and marketing led to the Bank creating a niche for itself in the areas, where he served. His emphasis on Customer Service and maintaining sound public relations, culminated in healthy business growth with a broad based clientele. As General Manager he headed the Bank’s operations at Delhi. Basically an operations man, his entire career at Union Bank of India was spent in the field, where he could gauge the market pulse and take pro-active, result oriented measures to garner market share.

A man with a penchant for independent thinking, Narayanasami has painstakingly taken several initiatives to expand customer reach through varied strategies. His hands-on and practice driven experience facilitated balanced decision making with insight into all aspects. During his service at the Punjab National Bank, he was promoted as Executive Director, in 2000 where he held this position for four years. He launched several new services to significantly impact customer satisfaction. Simultaneously, he also held several key positions including being the Chairman of PNB Asset Management Co Ltd and being the Director on the Boards of PNB Gilts Ltd and PNB Housing Finance Ltd. He played a pivotal role in net working of PNB branches (PNB was the first Public Sector Bank to initiate the net working of its branches) thus significantly augmenting the Bank’s distribution and service delivery capabilities. He was awarded the prestigious "TA Pai Memorial Best Banker Award" by Dehali Kannadiga, a Kannada Monthly Magazine. Moving to Andhra Bank, he spent another eventful tenure where in appreciation of his valuable contribution to the banking industry, he was elevated as Chairman and Managing Director of Andhra Bank, a position he held from April 2004 to May 2005.

There, he launched an aggressive campaign to expand the geographical spread of the bank. This was done by rapidly expanding the branch network outside Andhra Pradesh, by growing the ATM network and launching Financial Centers across the nation. The focus had been to ensure swift growth while upholding prudent financial practices. With the inherent skills of dynamism, he propelled the business of the Bank from Rs.36000 crore as at the time of taking charge to Rs.45000 crore as at the close of the financial year ended March 2005. The highlight of the performance was that Gross NPAs of the Bank fell to 2.38% (as on 31.03.05) from 4.60% (as on 31.03.04). The stock of the Bank has also been trading actively on the Stock Exchanges. In search of bigger challenges, he moved to Indian Oversees Bank (IOB) where he was appointed as Chairman and Managing Director on 9th June 2005. IOB, being one of the high performing banks, Narayanasami felt that its potential could be further encashed by reinventing existing processes in the light of the changing market scenario.

Accordingly, he conceived new methodologies with sale of insurance and mutual fund products by entering into strategic alliance with reputed insurance companies and fund houses. This was initiated to enhance the Bank’s fee based income by tapping cross-selling opportunities that were present in abundance. He has also implemented the segmentation approach among the branches so that every branch could focus on its core strengths depending on the potential, customer preference and product delivery, relevant to its command area. He aims to take the business mix to Rs.85,000 Crore by 2005-06 and to take the Bank into the Big League of banking industry. A renowned and widely respected personality in the Banking Circles, Narayanasami also holds the additional positions as Member of the Managing Committee of Indian Bank’s Association and Member of the Governing Council of the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance. Narayanasami’s versatility has earned him a good amount of respect in the banking sector and the IOB. One can take it for sure that, with Narayanasami manning the moolah, the IOB has much prosperous days to witness.