BCCI appoints Rahul Johri as its first CEO

     

 The creation of the post of the CEO was a change recommended by the three-member Lodha panel in its report in January this year. The panel had stressed the need for the BCCI to separate its governance and management duties, with the CEO taking charge of the management side. It also made recommendations for a clear segregation of operational duties from the governance and policy-makers in the board.

         The BCCI therefore has appointed media professional Rahul Johri as its first chief executive officer. Johri, who previously served as Discovery Networks Asia Pacific's executive vice-president and general manager for South Asia, will take up his new role from June 1 and, according to the BCCI, will be responsible for "smooth functioning of operations, stakeholder management and building robust strategies for further promoting the sport." Johri will report to BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur and will be based in Mumbai.

Korn Ferry, a Mumbai-based head-hunting firm, had been appointed by the BCCI to find the board a CEO, and Johri was chosen by the firm after a roughly four-month-long selection process.

The BCCI, however, had said the creation of the CEO and CFO posts was part of an initiative called 'Project Transformation' aimed at improving governance, and operational and financial processes. The board had hired auditing giant Deloitte for this initiative in October last year, one of the first steps taken by its new president Shashank Manohar. The Lodha panel, at the time conducting its hearings around the country, met with Manohar the day before he was elected BCCI president.

Thakur said Johri's appointment would help strengthen the working of the board. "We welcome Rahul aboard and wish him luck for his new role at BCCI," Thakur said in a press release. "In the past one year, BCCI has undertaken various initiatives aimed towards transforming the working of BCCI in order to make the functioning more robust. This endeavor is another initiative of the board aimed in the same direction and will mark one more milestone towards strengthening the professional working of the BCCI."