Star Leaders of NBFCs: People who Helped Build Leadership Skills
Published
A good leader has multiple skills, and they can broadly be divided into hard skills and soft skills. In these volatile and trying times, what skills are leaders leveraging, what is the outcome, what skills are they planning to develop further, and how? This is what Banking Frontiers is studying from an interaction with 5 leaders from India’s booming NBFC sector:
· Kalpanaa Sankar, MD, Belstar Microfinance
· Sanjay Agarwal, MD & CEO, Ambit Finvest
· Vivek Tiwari, MD, SATYA MicroCapital
· Anilkumar SG, CEO, Samunnati
· Kamlesh Gandhi, Chairman & MD, MAS Financial Services
Smriti Pandey: Name one or more persons who have made a big contribution in your life to boost your soft skills? Your hard skills?
Kalpanaa Sankar: I have been fortunate to learn from M.S. Sundararajan, former CMD of Indian Bank, who has greatly influenced my financial and administrative acumen. His insights on governance and risk management have been invaluable. In terms of soft skills, I have been deeply inspired by Girija Srinivasan, a leading gender expert, whose expertise has helped shape my perspective on inclusive leadership and social impact. Their guidance has played a significant role in my professional journey.
Sanjay Agarwal: My hard skills were shaped during my early years at SIDBI, SBI Commercial and International Bank, and Centurion Bank of Punjab. Mentors like Sanjay Sakhuja, Non-Executive Director at Ambit Pvt. Ltd., and Ashok Wadhwa, Group CEO at Ambit Pvt. Ltd., as well as close friends like Rohit Mehta, Head – Debt Advisory and Capital Structuring at Nuvama, played a pivotal role in broadening my perspectives. Their influence helped me appreciate the power of soft skills. On the personal front, my family has been a constant source of grounding, teaching me patience, empathy, and humility.
Vivek Tiwari: My leadership journey is deeply rooted in the values I absorbed early in life. I was naturally curious and studious, and those around me recognized early signs of leadership. These traits were a gift from my grandfather, the late Shri Radheshyam Tiwari, an esteemed school teacher revered for his selfless dedication to education. His humility, integrity, and commitment to uplifting others greatly shaped my empathy and belief in community service – laying the foundation for my soft skills.
My hard skills have been shaped by over 2 decades of experience in microfinance, during which I’ve overseen lending operations worth more than Rs250 billion. This journey helped me navigate operational complexities, embrace innovation, and scale SATYA to new heights.
AnilKumar SG: For my emotional intelligence or capacity to lead with empathy, the credit goes to my spiritual guide, Kamlesh D. Patel (Daaji), and the Heartfulness Institute. His teachings – not just in meditation, but in living with intention – helped me shift from being purely outcome-driven to becoming purpose-oriented in how I lead people and institutions. Heartfulness showed me the quiet strength in stillness, and the power of leading with the heart, especially in moments when the head alone isn’t enough. Through Heartfulness, I’ve learned to listen more deeply – not just to people, but to situations. That builds trust. That builds culture. And for me, leadership isn’t about charisma, it’s about consistency, care and clarity.
From a hard skills perspective, I owe a great deal to the early foundation at Canara Bank, where I was immersed in rural finance. That was my real classroom. Then, ICICI Bank exposed me to microfinance at scale, system-level thinking, and the importance of building sustainable models. At IFMR Trust, I was fortunate to design the KGFS model – again, a hands-on opportunity to shape a delivery mechanism that could reach underserved populations in remote villages. Each of these institutions – and more importantly, the people who trusted me there – gave me the space to experiment, to fail, and to build. They gave me the toolkit to solve problems structurally, not just symptomatically.
Together, these influences – Heartfulness for the why, and banking for the how – have shaped both my worldview and work ethic. That’s the duality I try to carry forward at Samunnati: compassion and competence. Because in our line of work, especially with smallholder farmers, one without the other just won’t cut it.
Kamlesh Gandhi: One of such persons is my late elder brother Late Mukeshbhai Gandhi.
