IOC board set for revamp, as six out of seven directors face retirement
New Delhi   26-Mar-2014

Nation's largest oil and gas retailer IndianOil (IOC) board is set for a revamp as along with its Chairman RS Butola, six out of its seven directors are due to retire within the next 10 months. Also with Butola's bid for an extension failing to take off owing to the Lok Sabha polls, B Ashok, who is currently Executive Director (Retail Sales) in the Maharatna company, is all set to take over as IOC chief on June 1, 2014.

With all the new entrants in IOC's board currently working as Executive Directors within the company, its top brass will wear a younger look by the time the last of the six directors facing superannuation, retires by January 31, 2015.

Though Ashok had been selected by Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) on October 9 last year, from among six candidates who had applied for IOC Chairman's post, echoes of Butola's extension (he superannuates on May 31, 2014) had gathered steam over the past couple of months.

Speculations about Butola's extension gained strength mainly owing to talks within the Government that a person having extensive knowledge of the company's board's functioning was required for the top post. However with the Lok Sabha poll schedule having been announced earlier this month, all speculations regarding the current incumbent's continuation beyond May 31, 2014, died a silent death, sources privy to the development said.

Interestingly however, IOC's entire board would wear a new look by February 2015, as along with Butola, six out of the seven board of directors are due to retire by January 31, 2015.

Director (Finance) P K Goyal is set to retire on August 31, 2014, while IOC's Director (Refineries) R K Ghosh as well as Director (R&D) R K Malhotra are to superannuate on June 30 this year. Apart from this, A M K Sinha who is Director (Business Development), will be retiring on July 31, 2014.

While these four key functionaries of IOC's board would superannuate by August this year, Director (Marketing) Makarand Nene is set to retire on December 31, 2014. A month later i.e. on January 31, 2015 Director (Pipelines) V S Okhde would superannuate. Only Director (HR) Sudhir Bhalla's retirement is quite far away as he is due to retire on October 25, 2015.

Apart from zeroing on B Ashok as IOC Chairman, the PESB has already finalised candidates for the key posts of Director (Finance), Director (Refineries), Director (Business Development) and Director (R&D). These are A K Sharma, Sanjiv Singh, Debasis Sen and Biswapriya Das respectively. All these four candidates are currently Executive Directors in the company.

As there is still some time in retirement of Nene, Okhde and Bhalla, their successors would be selected by PESB at a later date.