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Balram Bhagat joins The Wealth Company to lead pensions and products
MUMBAI: The Wealth Company, part of the Pantomath Group, has appointed Balram Bhagat as managing partner for products and pension, marking a bold step in its expansion plans.
A veteran of India’s pension and mutual fund industry, Bhagat brings over 30 years of experience in building financial institutions, promoting pension adoption, and advancing financial inclusion. He is set to strengthen the company’s leadership, enhance its product suite, and drive scalable growth across investment offerings and distribution channels.
Bhagat was the founding CEO of UTI Pension Fund, where he helped the organisation grow into India’s third-largest pension fund, managing over Rs 4,00,000 crore under the National Pension System. His leadership won the fund numerous national and international awards for innovation, governance, and excellence in pension management.
Prior to UTI Pension Fund, Bhagat held key positions at UTI Mutual Fund, including head of product sales, championing socially focused schemes and micro-pension initiatives. He also led state-level financial inclusion programmes, such as the Mukhyamantri Kanya Suraksha Yojna, broadening access to financial literacy and savings products in underserved communities.
The Wealth Company founder, MD, and CEO Madhu Lunawat said, “Balram Bhagat is a pioneering force in India’s pension ecosystem. His strategic vision, deep knowledge of product innovation, and track record in scaling institutions will be invaluable as we expand our footprint in the retirement space.”
Bhagat added, “I am thrilled to join The Wealth Company at this transformative stage. It is inspiring to see a young and dynamic founder institutionalising asset management with fresh ideas. My focus will be on creating scalable, purpose-driven solutions that advance financial inclusion and generate long-term value for stakeholders.”
Bhagat holds an M.A. in Economics, an MBA in Marketing, and is CAIIB-qualified. He currently serves as an independent director on the board of LIC Mutual Fund and has previously been a member of PFRDA’s Pension Advisory Committee.
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YES Bank appoints S Anantharaman as chief risk officer
Former Jio Financial Services group chief risk officer takes charge of enterprise-wide risk at the embattled private lender
MUMBAI: YES Bank is not taking chances with risk anymore. The private lender has appointed S Anantharaman as its chief risk officer, a hire that signals the bank’s continued effort to rebuild credibility and tighten the controls that once famously slipped.
Anantharaman arrives from Jio Financial Services, where he served as group chief risk officer and built a risk management architecture spanning lending, payments, insurance broking and asset management from the ground up. Before that, he held the chief risk officer role at Bank of Baroda and senior leadership positions at HDFC Bank and L&T Finance Holdings. Three decades in banking and financial services, in other words, with scars and qualifications to match. He is a chartered accountant and a CFA charterholder.
At YES Bank, his brief is considerable. Anantharaman will oversee the bank’s entire enterprise-wide risk framework, covering credit policy, market risk, operational risk, information security, data governance, analytics, model governance and data privacy. It is, in short, every lever that matters when a bank is trying to prove it has grown up.
YES Bank’s turbulent past needs little rehearsing. What it needs now is exactly what Anantharaman has spent thirty years building: the kind of risk culture that stops problems before they become headlines. The appointment suggests the bank knows it.
