Goldman Sachs hires Sonjoy Chatterjee from ICICI in India

Goldman Sachs has hired Sonjoy Chatterjee as co-chief executive officer for its India business alongside L Brooks Entwistle.

Entwistle has been chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs India since 2006 when the US firm split from Uday Kotak's investment bank, and became partner in October 2008.

Chatterjee joins Goldman Sachs as a managing director. Together with Entwistle, he will contribute to the development and expansion of the firm's business in India, according to a statement issued by Goldman.

Chatterjee joins from ICICI Bank where he has been an executive director on the board since 2007, responsible for corporate and investment banking, government banking and international banking. Before that he was managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank's UK subsidiary. He moved to London in 2003 to set up ICICI Bank UK, which was the first overseas subsidiary of India's largest private sector bank.

Chatterjee is an ICICI veteran and has been with the bank since he graduated from business school in 1994. Other positions he has held include head of strategic support in the office of the group CEO between 1998 and 2000 and client banker, managing some of the key corporate relationships between 2000 and 2002.

The ICICI group has been witnessing some changes since current CEO and MD Chanda Kochhar succeeded K.V. Kamath in 2009. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance MD and CEO Shikha Sharma has resigned to join Axis Bank, and Renuka Ramnath, MD and CEO of ICICI Venture, has left to start her own private equity firm, Multiples Asset Management.

The move by Goldman Sachs to install a co-CEO comes as a surprise to some bankers in India as the firm has been adopting a policy of selectively focusing on a few large clients and products rather than trying to dominate league tables. Chatterjee is expected to bring to the firm a more broad-based approach to clients, coming as he does from a commercial banking background.