Jagannathan was born in Bangalore and had schooling at Calcutta and Tiruchirapalli. He studied at Loyola College, Chennai and at St Joseph’s College at Tiruchirapalli. He was a topper in college and a university rank holder. He was a recipient of the Government of India scholarship for post-graduate studies. He taught at Loyola College for a year. Admission to MBA Program (1973-1975) at IIM, Ahmedabad was obtained. To take it up or not was a conflict at home. For lack of proper enlightened guidance, the booked train ticket to Ahmedabad was cancelled a few days before the start of the program.
He had joined State Bank of Mysore (SBM) as a Probationary Officer in Dec 1974 where he rose to become DGM (Credit). He went on deputation to State Bank of Hyderabad where he became GM (Commercial & International Banking) before moving over to State Bank of Patiala (SBP) as GM (Credit). He was also GM (Operations) at SBP. Then, he was Chief General Manager at State Bank of Saurashtra and was elevated as Managing Director of State Bank of Travancore (SBT) wherefrom he retired in April 2010. Then, he was Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the private sector bank Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB) from Sep 2010 to May 2012.
The exercise of merger of the first Associate Bank, State Bank of Saurashtra, with the parent State Bank of India happened during his tenure there (Aug 2008).
During his tenure at SBT, the Bank recorded the highest net profit (Mar2009) and it was ranked No 1 in Return on Capital by Business Today among all Public Sector Banks.
The Financial Express – Ernst & Young Survey of Best Banks 2011 ranked TMB as No1 among Old Private Sector Banks; and ranked as No 2 for 2012.
TMB was the Winner of Assocham Social Banking Excellence Award for the year 2012 under the Private Sector Category.
He was instrumental in the change of Logo of TMB and the new Logo was launched in May 2012.
He was an invited Speaker at Trivandrum Management Association Annuals on two occasions besides at St Joseph’s College, Tiruchirapalli, ICFAI - Patiala Chapter and others.
He has had wide experience in Corporate Finance, Agriculture, Planning (including Long Range Planning), Risk Management and General Management.
He was Independent External Monitor for Vijaya Bank from Aug 2015 till March 2019.
He taught Corporate Governance and Ethics at ITM Business School for one cycle. He was visiting Faculty at Southern India Banks’ Staff Training College from Jan 2015 to July 2018.
His academic and professional qualifications include: M.Sc (Physics), CAIIB, PGDBM (NIBM, Bombay). In all the six banks where he had worked, he was a constant Visiting Faculty to the Banks’ Training Centres. He introduced Distance Learning Programme (covering Credit, Foreign Exchange and Priority Sector Advances) at State Bank of Mysore when he was Senior Faculty at the Bank’s Training Centre. 1200 staff members participated in the year-long free programme. He believes in sharing of knowledge and experience with others for their empowerment.
He had written articles in the early years of his career in The Economic Times, The Financial Express, Prajnan (NIBM magazine), IBA Bulletin (now renamed as The Indian Banker) on Credit and Management. He was Local Honorary Secretary of the Indian Institute of Bankers (now called Indian Institute of Banking and Finance), Bangalore Chapter 1992-93.
He was the Editor of the Quarterly House Magazine ‘SBM News’ (while working in Credit Department) for 5 years.
He is the author of 3 books on Banking Finance.
His 11 articles have been published in The Indian Banker in the last six years.
He can be contacted at akjagan12@gmail.com