K S Rao – head of ABSL AMC’s award winning, industry leading Investor Education and Distributor Development vertical, retires this month after 32 years in the AMC world – split evenly between an initial 16 years at UTI AMC and the latter 16 at ABSL AMC.
Rao recounts his early days at UTI which marked his first association with independent MFDs – a relationship and bond that kept getting stronger and deeper through his 3 decades long journey in the MF industry.
A momentous and phenomenally far-sighted move by then SEBI Chairman U K Sinha back in 2012 to ask AMCs to set aside 2 bps of AuM for investor education was the genesis of AMFI’s path-breaking, category building Mutual Funds Sahi Hai initiative and IE initiatives from leading AMCs, of which ABSL AMC’s IE&DD vertical quickly rose to become the undisputed industry leader, under Rao’s stewardship.
Rao says he doesn’t look at himself as retiring – rather, he is re-tyre-ing – preparing in full gusto for the next phase of his life. He has enrolled for a senior management program at Harvard and promises to be as active as ever within the larger MF and investments ecosystem doing what he does best – ignite, inspire, illuminate.
What sets him truly apart from most is the sense of purpose– a missionary zeal that he brought to IEDD, the passion with which he spent every day of the last 12 years making a difference to millions of investors and thousands of distributors and the perseverance with which he steadfastly kept moving ahead all these years.
Widely acknowledged as one of the biggest well-wishers of MFDs, Rao takes us through his most memorable moments, his biggest learnings and timeless advice for MFDs in this free-wheeling conversation.