Sunil Mittal to join board of StanChart

MUMBAI: Bharti Airtel founder and chief Sunil Bharti Mittal will join the board of Standard Chartered PLC as an independent director. On Tuesday, the UK-based financial services major announced that Mittal will join the company as an independent non-executive director, effective August 1. The inclusion of Mittal on the bank’s board reflects the growing importance of the Indian market among global financial firms.

Mittal, 49, will be one of the nine independent directors on the board of over 150 years old Standard Chartered Bank. Along with Mittal, John Peace, chairman of Experian Group Ltd, a FTSE100 company, and Burberry Group PLC will also join the borad as an independent director.

‘‘Sunil is one of India’s most successful and highly respected entrepreneurs and I am very pleased that we have additional board representation from such an important market,’’ a Standard Chartered Bank release quoted Mervyn Davies, the company’s chairman.

Mittal is also the chairman of of Bharti Enterprises, controlling shareholder of Bharti Airtel, a US$35 billion market cap entity. It is also the leading mobile services company in India and one of the country’s top five companies by market cap. Last November, the Forbes magazine had ranked Mittal the sixth richest Indian, who had a combined family fortune of $6.9 billion. Other than his flagship telecom business, the group also has interests in life insurance, is planning to foray into organised retail and asset management businesses.