Mr. OP Bhatt retired as the Chairman of SBI in 2011. In his last role with SBI, he was not only the Chief Executive of India's largest commercial bank, but was also heading the entire State Bank Group consisting of 8 domestic and 5 international banking subsidiaries, 10 non-banking subsidiaries and 2 joint ventures.

Presently, he is a director on the board of Hindustan Unilever Ltd., ONGS, Tata Consultancy Services. He is a highly regarded thought leader and is affliated as an advisor with various prestigious associations in India and abroad.

During his tenure as Chairman of SBI, the Bank's business more than doubled, and the share price quadrupled. He successfully implemented the largest core banking network in the world which seamlessly networked 18,000 branches and 25,000 ATMs across more than 32 countries. He pioneered the bank's entry into new businesses such as general insurance, pension funds, infrastructure fund, private equity and custodial services. He executed a new model for financial inclusion based on mobile telephony which helped SBI take banking to 100,000 unbanked villages. This won the Best Bank prize for Financial Inclusion in 2010.

Under his leadership SBI was also awarded "Bank of the Year 2008 - India" & "Bank of the Year 2009 - India" by The Banker Magazine, London; Best Bank of the Year 2009 by Business India Magazine. Likewise the Bank climbed up by several ranks in Fortune 500, Forbes 2000, in the Brand Finance Global Banking 500 rankings and in the Banker Magazine, London's world rankings.

Mr. Bhatt was awarded CNN-IBN "Indian of the Year for Business 2007"; "Banker of the Year 2007" by the Business Standard; 'Best Executive of the Year 2008' by Asia Money; 'Best Banker of the Year 2009' by the Financial Express; JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award in 2009 in addition to many other recognitions.