| Bakery, Bank & Bar
kishore maharjan
Deputy General Manager
Himalayan Bank
Yes, this is a story of a baker who became a reputed banker and longs to open a bar.
Kishore K. Maharjan, Deputy General Manager of Himalayan Bank Limited, at one time was taking care of his family's bakery business, which was doing well with its Shudha Pauroti brand. But the business closed down when he joined the MBA course under Tribhuvan University.
Now in his incarnation as a banker he works around 10-12 hours a day and spends late evenings chilling out at a bar or attending parties. But having seen standard bars in various parts of the world in the course of his visits, he feels that there is a lack of a really good quality bar in the capital. In fact he and some of his friends came very close to opening such a bar several times, but somehow that plan has not materialised yet. "When I retire, I may end up opening a bar," he says musingly. He fondly recalls how he and a group of his banker friends spent Friday evenings in a then newly opened bar (now well established) making cocktails and serving customers (again a wide array of banker friends).
Being the son of a seasoned and no nonsense banker (his father K.L. Maharjan was with Nepal Industrial Development Corporation for over 25 years as a Senior Executive and is presently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Development Credit Bank Ltd.), banking therefore runs in his blood. Incidentally his youngest brother is also a banker in the US. But this was not something he was dreaming of when in school. "Rather I dreamt of being an engineer," he says. Though a career in medicine was thought to be very glamorous at the time, young Maharjan was interested in playing with machines and was good in drawings. But after high school with two marks lower (a mysteriously low score of 38 in Nepali) than the one who stood 10th in the merit ranking of the Board, his family enrolled him at a science curriculum to study biology. Four years later, circa 1980, when he passed his B.Sc., the university was closed down due to the civil commotion that was followed by the Referendum. It was during this sojourn that he started taking care of his family business.
By the time the university was reopened, young Maharjan had already developed a considerable interest in business management and the university had coincidently just started offering the MBA course. So he sought admission and finished his degree with good grades. He then joined a chartered accountancy firm, where he says he learned a lot while handling accounts of different types of establishments including Nepal Bank Limited. However he was disillusioned by the CA profession as he noticed his boss was always broke.
In the meantime, he started studying the project reports that his father would bring home from office. Till then, it was only NIDC that provided project loans while the commercial banks were providing only working capital loans. The study of these reports helped young Maharjan to understand the intricacies of project financing. So, when the Rastriya Banijya Bank decided to start project financing as well and wanted some one to do the job, Maharjan immediately jumped in. "It was me who, along with a colleague, Rabindra Ballav Pant, drafted the initial Project Financing Policy of RBB and the knowledge that I gained by studying the NIDC reports helped a lot," he says.
In the meanwhile, Nepal Indosuez Bank (now Nepal Investment Bank) was being set up in joint venture with Banque Indosuez of France, RBB and other Nepali investors. Maharjan shifted to the new bank, another major turning point in his career.
"There I learned a lot about how the foreign banks operate. By the late 80s computers were slowly coming in and Indosuez was already introducing them for banking needs. I adapted the financial analysis procedure in Microsoft Excel for the first time and thus cut down the project projection procedure from 40-50 hours of work to less than two hours. I single handedly developed this software and taught many of my colleagues how to use it. This same package was then ferried by them to other banks when they moved jobs. This is still being used by many banks, with some improvements though," he says proudly.
Though Nepal Indosuez was mainly involved in wholesale banking, Nepal Rastra Bank's rules forced it to open branches as well. The first major branch opened was in Birgunj and Maharjan was deputed there as the branch manager. Working there, the branch earned profits within the first six months of operation. However, the bank management asked him to slow down as they did not want to grow rapidly in portfolio. During the days of inhibited activity (in 1994), he got an invitation from the Himalayan Bank to head their New Road Branch in Kathmandu. Grabbing the opportunity he turned the branch into the best banking premise in the country. "My branch was a one stop affair offering all kinds of banking service. Within two years, the operation of the branch alone was bigger than the entire operation of most of the joint venture banks," he recalls.
Maharjan finds the banking sector becoming more conservative today because of the rapidly deteriorating situation in the country. He regards the 90s as the golden period for banking, industry and the economy. Now, the increased number of banks is creating unhealthy competition that is fast rising. The financial sector reforms have put various restrictions on banks, while the downturn of the economy has posed yet another set of challenges to the banks.
This generates the need in the country for a higher professional caliber among bankers, particularly in terms of risk analysis, project lending, treasury management and remittance handling. Even though the banks now need more professional manpower, Maharjan feels that many of the new people joining the banking industry lack the essential qualities critical to the growth of the banking industry. Added to this is that many good quality people are leaving the country, widening the gap in the human resource arena.
With a son and a daughter, both studying aboard, Kishore Maharjan has his hands full, but any available spare time is devoted to the few sports he truly enjoys (squash, and the occasional game of football). The air at home and his way to work is filled with soft music which he enjoys thoroughly - pop music while he shaves or gulping his breakfast - forever in rush. But the patience to sit through three hour long Hindi movies is just not there. Humming and crooning old Nepali numbers, fingers itching to strum the guitar, Kishore can be found often drumming to the beat! A thoroughbred night-bird, Kishore requires little sleep, rising early to catch "the-birds-on-the-treadmill" gymming out ever so often.
Want to catch Kishore K. Maharjan? Then look for a green Peugeot on many a street at night where the owls dominate. Or fly into his office. Only you'll have to wait in line while he deals with 17 issues simultaneously.
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