Board Of Directors - Kotak General Insurance

Mr. Gaurang Shah heads the Life Insurance, Asset Management and the International business of the Kotak Mahindra Group. He took over this assignment on May 1, 2010. Mr. Shah has over 31 years of rich and varied experience in the Financial Services sector, several of which are with the Kotak Mahindra Group. He has played a stellar role in building the Group’s Consumer Banking business and Life insurance business. He has held several positions of high responsibility over the years, including, inter alia, the Head of Retail Assets at Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited. He was also closely associated with Kotak Mahindra Primus (a joint venture between Kotak Mahindra Group and Ford Credit International), among India’s leading automobile finance companies. Mr. Shah is a Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary and Cost Accountant.

Ms. Sharda Agarwal holds a postgraduate diploma from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a B.Sc. Honours (Economics) degree from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. She is a renowned marketing and brand expert, with over two decades of experience in various industries and sectors. She was the co-founder of a strategic marketing firm - MarketGate Consulting. She has served as Director of Marketing at Coca Cola India and was also associated with Johnson & Johnson in India and the US.

She is currently the co-founder of an online women’s health platform - Sepalika. Her company uses evidence-based natural solutions from the field of functional medicine to help women address & reverse their chronic hormonal health conditions.

She is also an independent director on the Boards of Future Lifestyle Fashions and Future Speciality Retail (Lee Cooper brand).

Ravi Venkatraman has about 4 decades of varied experience as a senior finance professional across the BFSI sector. He retired as an Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer at Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Limited in July 2020. At the Mahindra group, he is credited with setting up and scaling 5 group companies, namely – Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd., Mahindra Rural Housing Finance Ltd., Mahindra Insurance Brokers Ltd., Mahindra Manu Life Mutual Funds & Mahindra Finance Ltd.

Ravi a recipient of multiple leading industry awards such as the CFO 100 Roll of Honour in 2011, 2012, 2013 & 2014, Best CFO Award, CFO 100 League of Excellence & Most Influential CFOs of India, just to name a few.

Besides being an Independent director at Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Co. Ltd., he holds multiple directorships across leading BFSI companies in India. He is a BCOM graduate and a qualified CMA and also holds Post Graduation Diploma from IIM Kolkata.

Mr. G Murlidhar is a founder member of Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Limited, and has served the Company in various capacities of increasing responsibility over the years. Mr. Murlidhar has over 30 years of rich and varied experience in functional areas of Finance, Commercial Projects, Marketing, HR, IT, Consumer distribution besides handling public issues and open offers across BFSI, Services and Manufacturing. Mr. Murlidhar is a Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary and Cost Accountant.

Virat Diwanji, Group President and Head – Consumer Bank, is with the Kotak Mahindra Group for over the last two and a half decades. Virat is part of the Bank’s Group Management Council that drives and oversees the Kotak Mahindra Group’s growth charter.

He began his career with the management consultancy division of A. F. Ferguson & Company in 1988. He joined Kotak in 1994.

In his long innings at Kotak, Virat has led over 10 diverse business lines cutting across Assets and Liabilities and has been instrumental in metamorphosing many business divisions into success stories at Kotak. He took on the mantle of managing the branch banking business in November 2007 with the primary responsibility of establishing bank branches as a point of product distribution, transaction processing and differentiated customer experience.

Some of his career milestones include managing the first JV of the Group with an overseas partner, Ford Credit as its Managing Director and incubating & growing two niche customer segments of the consumer banking business viz. Priority & NRI Banking. In the recent past, Virat has successfully managed the integration of ING Vysya Bank’s retail distribution network with the branch banking network of Kotak, a melange of not only business but culture, talent and a unified vision.

Virat is passionate about mentoring budding talent and has groomed several business leaders at all levels.

Suresh Agarwal is the Managing Director (MD) & CEO of Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Company Ltd. (KGI) Since 1st May 2021.

Prior to this role, Suresh was heading the overall distribution at Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company where he was responsible for complete distribution channels, strategic initiatives including customer engagement, distribution process, and quality & operations efficiencies.

Founding member of Kotak Life, Suresh is also part of the Kotak’s key leadership group, which drives the growth charter for the organization.

Suresh started his journey with Kotak as a management trainee in 1995 and was part of the corporate finance division at Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd. He has been associated with the life insurance business for over 20 years, and has played a vital role in establishing the distribution of Kotak Life pan-India. He has total experience of over 26 years.

Suresh is a qualified Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary, and Cost and Works Accountant. An ardent cricket fan, Suresh also enjoys listening to music and watching movies.