Management Team

Udaya Kumar Hebbar

Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Udaya Kumar Hebbar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at CA Grameen is a veteran in the microfinance industry who established that inclusive finance could succeed with a market-based model. He has been the architect behind the transformational journey of building the CA Grameen brand as the leading microfinance institution in India.
He is a seasoned banker with over 35 years of rich experience spanning across operations, including rural, agriculture, and micro-banking fields. Prior to joining CA Grameen, he held various leadership positions including Head of Commercial Banking and Payment Operations at Barclays Bank PLC. and successful stints of over a decade each in Corporation Bank and ICICI Bank. Mr. Udaya holds a Master’s degree in Commerce from Karnatak University, Dharwad, and is a certificated associate from the Indian Institute of Bankers.

Ganesh Narayanan

Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Business Officer

Mr. Ganesh Narayanan, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Business Officer at CA Grameen brings diverse experience of over 24 years, spanning strategic planning and spearheading several key projects. He is known for creating a culture of business excellence and delivering superior benchmark performance in his previous stints with prominent organisations including ICICI Bank, Fullerton India and YES Bank. He was with Yes Bank for a decade as Group President & Deputy National Head – Indian Financial Institutions Banking, heading multiple business segments covering NBFCs, Cooperative Banks, Capital Markets, and Full-Fledged Money Changers. In his journey with Fullerton India, he played an instrumental role in starting the microfinance business as Vice-President – Rural Markets. At ICICI Bank, he was an AGM & Zonal head- South for Microfinance Business.

Mr. Ganesh holds a Master’s degree in Management and a Graduate degree in Electronics.

Balakrishna Kamath

Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Balakrishna Kamath is the Chief Financial Officer at CA Grameen. He comes with 30 years of experience in finance, treasury, fundraising, corporate governance, and compliance functions. He has held various leadership positions throughout his career from 1993 to 2020 across various industries, in the largest multinational conglomerate of India, Tata Group covering Indian and Global markets. Before joining CA Grameen, he held the position of ‘CFO & Compliance Officer’ in Tata Capital Housing Finance Ltd., Mumbai. Mr. Kamath is a qualified chartered accountant.

Gururaj K S Rao

Chief Audit Officer

Mr. Gururaj Rao, Chief Audit Officer at CA Grameen brings more than 20 years of auditing experience in the Middle East and India. With his association with the company for over 12 years, he has laid the foundation of the internal audit function with his eyes on a detailed approach enabling cost-effectiveness and excellent operational controls. Before joining CA Grameen, he was associated with Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo W.L.L and Mallya Hospital, Bangalore. Mr. Gururaj holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Bangalore University and is a Certified Internal Auditor from the Institute of Internal Auditors.

Firoz Anam

Chief Risk Officer

Mr. Firoz Anam, Chief Risk Officer at CA Grameen has close to two decades of experience across various banks and NBFCs. His risk management expertise spans financial products including mortgages, credit cards, personal loans, microfinance, and small business loans. He is also a trained data scientist with extensive experience in developing advanced analytical solutions. Firoz has managed credit & operational risk functions within institutions like IDFC Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and Citibank. In his last role before joining CA Grameen, Firoz worked as the Chief Risk Officer with Indie Home Loans. Firoz has a B.Tech. degree from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA degree from IIM Bangalore.

Sudesh Puthran

Chief Technology Officer

Sudesh Puthran is the Chief Technology Officer of CA Grameen and is responsible for leading the function of Information Technology at the company. He has 25 years of extensive work experience in the IT industry. Prior to joining CA Grameen, Sudesh has worked with various prominent organisations in the leadership role including Aditya Birla Group as CTO, HDFC Bank as Executive Vice President, and was the Head of Digital – Technology & Innovations, CIBIL as CIO since its inception and was instrumental in building the first and largest credit bureau in India. He was also a CTO at CRISIL. He has obtained a degree of B.E (Electronics and Telecom) and MFM (Master’s in Financial Management) from Mumbai University.

Ravi Rathinam

Vice President - Technology and Chief Information Security Officer

Mr. Ravi Rathinam is Vice President of Technology, and Chief Information Security Officer at CA Grameen since February 2022. He holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Applications and has completed an Executive General Management Program from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.  He is also a Java and Oracle Certified Professional in development and has cleared the CISA certification examination, from ISACA.

With more than 25 years of experience in IT & Banking industries, he is vastly experienced in implementing technology solutions for Core, Retail and Wholesale Banking, Auditing, domains, etc. He has an ardent interest towards structuring and adopting a process-oriented approach from thinking, designing, implementing, and maintaining technology solutions. Prior to joining us, he was associated with Fincare Small Finance Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Oracle Financial Software Ltd.

M. J. Mahadev Prakash

Company Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer

Mr. M. J. Mahadev Prakash is the Company Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer of our Company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from the University of Mysore and a bachelor’s degree in law from Karnataka State Law University. He also holds a Master’s degree in Commerce from Karnataka State Open University and a Master’s degree in Business Laws from National Law School of India University, Bangalore. He is also an Associate Member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, New Delhi. Prior to joining CA Grameen, he was associated with EY, J. Sagar Associates, Janalakshmi Financial Services (now called as Jana Small Finance Bank), RMZ Corp, BPL Ltd., and Bal Pharma Ltd. Mr. Mahadev Prakash joined our Company in December 2019.

Gopal Reddy

Business Head – Group Lending

Mr. Gopal is the Vice President, Operations (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh) of our Company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from Bangalore University. He has been an integral part of the organisation since the beginning with over 22 years of hands-on experience in microfinance operations.

Arun Kumar B

Head – Strategy, Innovation and Analytics

Mr. Arun is the Vice President, Strategy, Innovation, and Analytics of our Company. He holds a bachelor’s degree of technology in textile technology from Allagappa College of Technology, Guindy, Chennai, and a postgraduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore. Prior to joining our Company, he was associated with Infosys Technologies Limited and Barclays Bank PLC. Mr. Arun joined our Company in November 2010.

Srivatsa H N

Business Head – Retail Finance and Group Lending

Mr. Srivatsa is the Vice President, Operations (Karnataka, Gujarat, and Rajasthan) of our Company. He holds a pre-university certificate issued by the Education Department, Government of Karnataka. Srivatsa HN joined TMT on December 13, 2002, and subsequently transferred to our Company in October 2007. Mr. Srivatsa has nearly two decades of experience in microfinance operations.

Nagananda Kumar K N

Head – Centralized Operations

Mr. Nagananda is the Vice President, Centralized Operations of our Company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Bangalore University. He joined our Company in April 2001 in the Department of Information Technology and served until March 2012. He worked with Sysfore Technologies from 2012 to 2016 before re-joining our Company in March 2016.

Nilesh Dalvi

Head – Investor Relations

Mr. Nilesh Dalvi, Senior Vice President – Investor Relations at CA Grameen comes with an enriching work experience of over 14 years spanning India, United States, and Europe markets. In his previous role as the CEO of Dickenson IR, he provided investor relations advisory services to over 50 corporates across diverse industries like BFSI, Media & Entertainment, Jewellery, Textiles & Apparels, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Real Estate, Infrastructure, etc, backed by his strong equity research capabilities and understanding of equity capital markets.
In his early years, he worked as a credit analyst with Bank of America (Corporate Debt) covering fortune 500 companies in the Oil & Gas sector in the United States and the Power sector in Europe. He has also worked with Tata Consultancy Services supporting a leading global telecommunication client. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) from CFA Institute, USA, holds Financial Risk Manager (FRM) certification from Global Association of Risk Professionals, USA, holds a Master’s Degree in Finance and Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics from Mumbai University.

Haridarshini A

Head – Operational Excellence

Ms. Haridarshini has close to 20 years of experience in the development sector. She joined the Company immediately after pursuing her B. Tech, in the finance and analysis team in 2003. Thereafter, she worked with APMAS-Technical Institution, focusing on ratings for Self-Help Groups (SHG) and training in Accountings, Delinquency Management, and Financial Analysis. She re-joined CA Grameen in May 2007 and since then she has been associated with us. She has worked with various departments including MIS, Planning and Monitoring, Finance & Account, and Human Resources. Currently, she is heading CA Grameen’s Operational Excellence Department. Haridarshini holds a degree in B. Tech from REC-Warangal and she also holds a certified Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt.

Sundar Arumugam

Head - Digital Lending and Retail Finance Products

Sundar is the Head of Digital Lending and Retail Finance Products at CA Grameen. He comes with over 20 years of experience in product management, marketing, strategy and business development in financial services and technology. He is passionate about financial inclusion and is a focused problem solver, keen to leverage technology and data to solve real world problems. Prior to CA Grameen, he was with CreditAccess Asia (CAA) where he led business innovation for the group including, exploring, piloting new business / revenue streams, enabling technology and data driven process transformation to drive competitive differentiation for the group companies. Prior to CAA, he headed product management at Equifax India where he led the creation of one of the two mainstream credit bureaus for microfinance segment. He was a part of original start-up team that setup Equifax India in the country and also was instrumental in launching many analytics driven products for the company. Sundar started his career with Infosys where he led portfolio of engagements for customers in health insurance space.

Manian RHS

Head- Human Resources

Manian RHS is the Head of Human Resources at CA Grameen. He has close to 18 years of experience of which over 15+ years in BFSI HR. He holds diverse experience across Talent Acquisition, L&D, Employer Branding, Performance Management & Centre of Excellence (COE).

Prior to CA Grameen, he was President – Human Capital Management at YES Bank, where he was leading COE for Retail Businesses and Business HR for South & East. Before YES Bank, he was associated with Standard Chartered Bank and CitiFinancial. Manian holds a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering & Post Graduate Diploma in Management.