Theagarajah, prior to his posting at Cargills Bank, operated as the CEO of NDB PLC for three years during which time Global Finance Magazine awarded the ‘Best Bank in Sri Lanka’ award to NDB in 2015. Prior to that when he served as CEO/MD at HNB PLC for nine years the bank won recognition as the Best Retail Bank in Sri Lanka for seven successive years (2006-13). Theagarajah also won personal recognition by the Asian Banker for outstanding ‘Leadership in Banking’ twice in 2010 and 2013.
He currently serves as the Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. He is also an independent non-executive Director of Carson Cumberbatch PLC. A former Chairman of Asian Bankers Association, he was also a past Chairman of the Sri Lanka Bankers’ Association (Guarantee) Ltd, Financial Ombudsman Sri Lanka (Guarantee) Ltd and former Director of the Colombo Stock Exchange. He has served as Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK) Sri Lanka Governing Board and also as a member of CIMA UK’s Global Council. He has also served as a Council Member of the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors.
Rajendra Theagarajah is a one-of-akind think tank and veteran banker with a wealth of experience in banking and financial services in his vault, counting a fruitful three decades and a half in banking both locally and internationally.
He has the air of an absolute aristocrat (of course, minus the top hat and tailcoat) who retains a common touch, feeling equally at home enjoying a concert at the London’s O2 stadium or travelling in rural Thanamalvila. A powerful influencer and a free thinker he is daring to a point of obsession about having his way and doing things differently.
Theagarajah, who was elevated to the post of Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Cargills Bank in January this year was with the bank since 2016 serving as its Non-Executive Joint Deputy Chairman. In the bank which presents a vision to be the most inclusive bank in the country, he plays a pivotal role in executing strategy and delivering the business plan of the bank which includes a roadmap for a listing at a future point in time.
BMD magazine had a one-on-one chat with him about his remarkable life adventures in the banking industry.
Simple Values,
Lasting Impressions
As a role model his father looms large in his mind and the most compelling influence he received as a child was the simple value system trained at home. “The most important thing he learnt was the value of a handshake: ‘the word is your bond’. Today people will talk about handshakes but will try to take cover behind papers and signatures”. The power of firm handwriting was another thing his father had emphasized insisting that firm handwriting would recognize the character of a person. “To us it made sense, which people do not do today. A lot of values were thus imbued at our dinner table at home and it made a big difference in all our lives – the lives of four siblings which includes me.”
To Make or Break
He recalled being playful at school – “Royal College was my school, and my father was concerned that I wouldn’t get through my Ordinary Levels especially in Applied Mathematics and he spoke to the subject teacher and the teacher said just trust me with your son for an year and I would either make him or break him!” And his father gave the go ahead! Theagarajah recalls “I think the teacher actually made me, first by breaking me!” Well he was served with everything from a slipper to a broomstick, he confessed, “That’s how they controlled difficult children, then. Looking back that also had some value I would say.” Maybe for Theagarajah ‘corporal punishment’ had had a motivational push!
Homing in on Happiness
Being a banker we checked out how he cashed in on his happiness. “I think family is an intrinsic part of life and success.” Very often people measure success with money. “But I measure success with happiness.” He has three siblings and had a very happy childhood with the love they got from their parents and the affection of siblings. “We are extremely close even though we are in different parts of the world. As for my family I have two children and a wife. Having been a CEO for almost 18 years maybe I haven’t spent as much time with my family as I wished to, but I think my kids know whenever there is a need for the father their father would always be there.” Work will never take first place whenever there is an emergency and he insists that he has demonstrated that.
Family Man
People do talk about every successful man having a successful woman behind him. “I don’t believe in that. There are three women in my home who stand side by side and not behind me.” They are his wife and two daughters. It’s also important on the long term when you run an organization with several thousand people, to always remember that “It’s not just you, but the support role the wife plays is an equal integral part of a successful CEO as much as his own merits.” He sees that happening with the role his wife plays. “Sometimes you don’t realize how much the people who work with you look you up! You think they look at you but they look at the family.”
First Job
He was lucky enough to get through his O’ Levels and a reasonably good A’ Levels but it was not good enough to enter Medical or Engineering but “I think I was wise enough to start a career in Accountancy and get through all my exams, Chartered Accountancy as well as CIMA followed by reading for a MBA at UK’s Cranfield School of Management and I got out of the field of Accounting the moment I got my three letters – ACA.”
He recalls “I wanted to have fun when I landed my first job. As a qualified accountant I joined the Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A (now known as J P Morgan Chase) which was one of the 3 top US Money Centre Banks at its London office in 1984 after qualifying in Sri Lanka.” It’s when the ethnic conflict started. So he remained overseas and, “I was completely new to the “square mile” which was the financial centre in the city of London and banking. The only way I could break in and survive was to forget everything I learnt in the past 5 years in Sri Lanka and go down to ground zero and learn everything in the city of London, the culture, the work practices, and even the balance sheet of a bank which was quite different and literally the opposite of a company.” The best part is “So, I completely brainwashed myself from ground zero,” to the extent that in the “City” wearing brown shoes and white socks was not on! “So I learnt the hard way.”
Maybe by default, he got in to banking, not that anything attracted him in particular in banking but he was lucky to get in to a US bank with a Global presence, one of the largest in the UK, “Mainly for the travel bug!” The attraction of travel at that bank enticed him. “In the first 5-6 years in that bank I would have seen almost half of the world mainly Europe, Middle East and North Africa and I would have easily spent 60-70 percent of my time in that bank on the plane,” he says.
Never Say No To Opportunity
As a result of all that broadening of his horizon and gathering exposure, insights and new knowledge by the gallon, a couple of things did happen. “In the next 15 to 20 years of my management career I never looked at myself as a Credit Specialist, an Accounting Specialist or a Banking Specialist. To me business was like a “sausage factory!” he put it so succinctly. Then he elaborates, “You give me a challenge, you have the set of inputs and if someone wants something out of it, it’s up to the management team to get the best of what is put in and give it out. As a result of that I learnt never to say no to a challenge.” His confidence was overpowering and he knew he would always find a way to succeed come what may. “When I came in to HNB over 8 years ago and became CEO, I had 4 different distinct challenges or opportunities and I faced every one of them. I didn’t say I don’t want it. That’s the training which I had with Chase Bank and what my MBA from Cranfield which I read when I was 23 or 24 years old inculcated in me very strongly – to never look at a particular side and say I don’t want that. So no regrets.” He sure has had a rollercoaster adventure in place of a professional career!
The Climb
In the next 2 decades, when I came back to Sri Lanka I benefitted from the 10 years or so of what I had learnt in the City of London. As a result, in the next 26 years I could interact with anyone in any part of the world with such ease because of that self-confidence beyond the academic. I could interact with any culture one-on–one.” The first 10 years or so post qualifying, he had been in Europe, UK and since his return in 1992 the world has been his oyster! “There would have been a limit to which I would have gone with that US Bank and the next thing available to me was to take a posting to Latin America or the US.” But his wife has a way of influencing positively. She has insisted that if Theagarajah wanted to go back and do anything, to go to Asia – Sri Lanka, of course. “And then I had the opportunity to get back here!” He spent the first 4 years with the French Bank Indosuez (now part of Credit Agricole), and suddenly something happened to change his life. He got caught in the Central Bank bomb blast in January 1996!
Opportunity in a Crisis
The Indo Suez Bank was completely wiped out! He was acting for CEO who was in France and he had to start it from ashes. Just 72 hours after Indosuez Bank was grounded flat, he started it at the Jinasena building in Hunupitiya in the rooftop when “the Jinasena family gave me an empty floor at the top of the building and said do what you can.” That gave Theagarajah a tremendous challenge but he learned it the hard way and took a firm decision that he was not going out of this country and that he was going to sit here and make a difference.
“The 1996 January bomb blast actually helped in changing my life. I made a firm decision I am not going out. I would have been 38 then when most of my age group was going out. My wife being very strong-minded supported me in my decision. When I had a chance again to go back to Europe I chose to remain. And that made a difference. Talking about my work place then, Indosuez, French Bank, one branch, very upper crust very much resonated with the Colombo 7 background I came from. But if the bomb blast didn’t ground it and I continued there I would have been playing golf, stopping at 5 pm and going home.”
From a Drop, to an Ocean
Of course, HNB bought the Colombo Branch business of Indosuez bank after the blast. When the invitation came from the late Chrishantha Cooray, HNB’s Chairman and Rienzie Wijetilleke, HNB’s MD to Theagarajah, it was like going from a drop in to a huge ocean. “The success there was not taking that 15 years of foreign bank exposure and to imbibe that in to HNB, but taking only those trends and recognizing what a local bank was and integrating myself in to the local system. The next 8 years was when I think I earned the respect of people at HNB which was a large organization where I saw SL through a complete new set of eyes.”
He was not trying to be arrogant he insists but being a person from Rosmead Place backdrop who would never get to go to a place like Angunakolapelessa in the deep south and Velanai in the extreme north. But he did go to these rural places for the experience, and of course on official duty to open branches to provide financial inclusion to these remote rural communities. “It was a big opportunity” learning the real ‘slice of life’ stories when he had to lead HNB for the next 10 years. “When I built it, taking it from where Rienzie left it with his fantastic momentum which also gave me complete satisfaction of engaging Sri Lanka in a different level.”
“The opportunity to drive HNB plugging it across every strata of society including the Veddah community through its Mahiyangana Branch gave me tremendous satisfaction. Running HNB and competing with the top 2 or 3 banks and always striving to be on top kept me on my toes.” When you are competing it’s important to see where you are in the league and it keeps your mind sharpened. It’s a big race you run while being focused.
“When I look back now from the role I am currently playing at Cargills, another very grassroots-centric organization with a very inclusive model, literally completes the picture from where I left HNB, wanting to do something far more deep which I actually enjoy doing and having fun.”
It Pays To Go Beyond
His words of advice to young people, “Don’t stick to what you are doing however well you are paid but try and do something beyond the basic job you are doing to improve your overall profile, because it takes you to a different level. From a professional point of view I always did what the work entailed, examinations, ran the technical CA national conference for 4 – 5 years played my role even though I didn’t practice as an accountant. When I was invited to CIMA Sri Lanka Board to lead it I rose to the occasion and became the Chairman of the Board and the Global President who came here invited me to serve a 4 year period on the Global council as a co-opted member. I did it because of the Accountancy education and what I could contribute to the global curriculum as well as bring good insights to the council of Asian markets. These things outside of your job completes a more holistic individual.”
“Looking at where I am today the Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber I remember there was some criticism initially as to what I was going to do there. Some well-wishers insisted it was an old boys club not worth spending ones time and effort. I told the critics that you can stand outside and throw a stone but there is also something you can do if you go in there, because being in banking, you must understand that there is no banking without business.”
When the invitation came from the largest and the oldest chamber in Sri Lanka, he accepted with the objective of making a difference. “I am glad I invested part of my time in the last 10 years to be a part of what I am today. I am extremely happy I got involved initially with the committee eventually becoming part of the leadership team. You become a completely holistic individual. I would be with the Thai Prime Minister, in a few hours, an opportunity I did get sitting here in the last two years and now you are meeting a dozen or more of national leaders because you are sitting in the apex of the oldest chamber. That experience and interaction is a complete different thing which wouldn’t come your way in the normal day to day job. I think I had the good fortune and am enjoying and embracing it. So I would say to young people always look beyond what you are doing.” That sure is great advice coming from someone who practices what he preaches and proves his point.
Leading the Chamber
Influencing policy is a key task of the Chamber. “In the last 6-8 years what we have done is we have strengthened the Secretariat. People like us come and go in a tenure of two years as the Chairman. It’s not about mine or anyone else’s two years but it’s about subscribing to a set of pillars and then strengthening the Secretariat to defend, making sure those values are preserved and engage continuously whichever government takes power, in terms of key policy. And it is key to be solid enough to critique constructively where it has to be critiqued,” he wasn’t mincing his words.
Today the Chamber is positioned as the premier voice of business and its not here “to pat somebody’s back on a particular government.” While you recommend good things and “when there are not so good things you must have the courage to come out and say so in the best interest of the nation as well as of membership.” So that sure offers a tremendous opportunity to an influencer and enjoy the experience. He sure is living his moment.
Economic Thrust
There are 3 or 4 things to note here with regard to chamber activities. One of the key pillars of the chamber is Trade Facilitation. “Being an island
nation we recognize the power and value of international trade, and its share of activity between businesses. Wherever there is a free trade agreement or an opportunity for engaging tariff reviews the chamber gets involved with deep research to make sure that the voice of business is given – it’s not about individual businesses – it’s about sectors and groups – it’s an important ongoing engagement.”
The Chamber has 6 national agenda committees, 8 sector committees, which build in the specialism on key sectors. “So you build in that cluster of expertise which then helps you to engage with anybody. For example Banking and Finance is one. Energy is one and so is Trade Liberalization. Export is one so we are very much a part of the Export strategy with the right inputs. Given the commitment to develop a secretariat led chamber and building the institutional capacity of the chamber is very important. Sufficient planning, putting the key officers in front and giving them that exposure is extremely important than taking the limelight all the time,” he elaborated the value points.
Policing National Issues
“What we intend to do as a Board is to give policy direction and the support for the Secretariat to go in front, as it’s important. The next thing we are doing now is that being the oldest and the largest chamber and realizing there are other chambers that have their own uniqueness. But there are common issues on which we can work unitedly as one.
Looking at the most recent three or four common issues which is worrying Sri Lanka: the Kandy ethnic issue raising its head again, secondly there is the issue of falling short in policy execution, even at budget level. The third thing is to look at FDIs as its very important but why marginalize domestic entrepreneurship without giving equal opportunities. There are 3 or 4 common areas where we have now activated the Joint Business Forum where the 5 or 6 of the bigger chambers come together for a common purpose while you retain your institutional capacity and your core values separately yet common things will come together.”
After the Kandy issue “5 or 6 chambers had their logos together and we came out quite strongly condemning this violence and informed the government that “Whatever you do economic activity will prosper only if you do not condone this sort of nonsense and you execute law and order to the maximum.” Coming together as a joint group is another powerful initiative of the Chamber.” With Theagarajah at its helm we are assured that the activities masterminded by the Chamber would be strategic, progressive, and will succeed without a doubt.
Influencing Export Strategy
A firm patriot of Sri Lanka, Theagarajah puts the cards on the table with his finger on our economy. “Sri Lanka is a country with 20 million people and about a 80 billion dollar modest GDP. We are an island nation and there is no way we can go on our own and compete if we don’t recognize the importance of trade. International trade is absolutely important. The next thing is whether we like it or not 1/3 of SL population is engaged in agriculture and we are blessed with this food security. As long as we keep on growing primary agricultural commodities there is always the question as to how much can you grow to feed this small number of 20 million people. So again to link this as part of a national export strategy is to see to what extent you can encourage value added food processing so that you encourage the people in that sector to grow and to not depend on domestic market alone. You take certain amount of produce and keep on processing adding value and then export it and become a part of a value chain.” He makes everything seem so easy and comprehensible.
Becoming an International Trade Hub
“There is another area which we feel strongly about and need to act upon in the coming years whether we like to talk about India, or China, as geopolitics is important.” The single largest economic activity we have been seeing for the last 4 years is the Belt and Road initiative of China. It embraces some
60 countries, from East China to Western Europe. On one side you have roads connecting through Myanmar, Kunming, Pakistan going right up to Eastern and Central Europe going up to the UK and then we start again from East China you come down from Indonesia Thailand embracing Sri Lanka going through Oma
n and Suez Canal and move up to Europe on the maritime road. Sri Lanka is beautifully poised there. “The question is do you look at this influence as an invasion
and a concern or do you profit from it. And I think, looking at Pakistan and some of the countries around it who have embraced it to their benefit and we have the un
ique opportunity of doing the same thing as long as we engage these people we are also important to the Belt and Road initiative so we also need not just give it away.”
Here is a man of the world, profound with knowledge, wiser for his global exposure, powerful with his energetic strategy
planning, strong with his networking and influential with his leadership. We need more Theagarajahs to fire up our progressive moves and economic thrust. Something great is imminent and when it happens for Sri Lanka, let’s hope the man who does things differently in his own inimitable way, would be behind it. bmd