Axis Bank Ltd.'s Shikha Sharma may join the Tata Group to lead the group's financial services vertical.

Axis Bank Ltd.'s Shikha Sharma may join the Tata Group to lead the group's financial services vertical, one person aware of the development told BloombergQuint.

Tata Sons Ltd.’s Chairman N Chandrasekaran has selected the managing director and chief executive officer of India’s third largest private lender to head the vertical that will include companies like Tata-AIA Life Insurance and Tata Capital, the person said requesting anonymity as the information is not public.

As reported recently Axis Bank has appointed executive search firm Egon Zehnder to find an MD and CEO after Sharma’s term ends next year. She is eligible to reapply.

Sharma, Tata Sons and Axis Bank did not immediately reply to BloombergQuint’s emailed queries.

Chandrasekaran is working on a plan to consolidate more than 100 companies of the $103-billion Tata Group into six clusters, each headed by an independent head.

The Tata’s Financial Services Cluster will include five companies:

• Tata AIA Life Insurance
• Tata AIA General Insurance
• Tata Asset Management
• Tata Capital
• Tata Investment Corporation

Sharma took over as the MD & CEO of Axis Bank in 2009, after working at ICICI Bank Ltd. for 29 years. She expanded Axis Bank’s operations in corporate and retail lending, besides venturing into investment banking with the merger with ENAM’s investment banking business. The bank’s loan book grew more than four-fold to Rs 3.73 lakh crore during her term.

Sharma also led the lender into mutual funds, debenture trustee services, non-banking financial services, retail broking and institutional broking.

The bank, however, has been under pressure from mounting gross non-performing assets, which rose to 5.04 percent at the end of last financial year compared to less than 1 percent when she took over.

BloombergQuint

This article was originally published on BloombergQuint.