If Bharat Kaushal’s life had gone according to script he would have been a civil servant, probably a cop, like his father. Instead, he became an investment banker, eventually becoming the chairman India of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. And then in another twist, he became the first Indian MD of Hitachi India, the regional headquarters of the Japanese multinational conglomerate, and soon elevated to executive chairman, necessitating a reinvention of sorts as suddenly he had to think beyond finance and manage over 28 businesses.

Most people in India associate Hitachi with the company that sells air conditioners. The reality is that it sold off its AC business, and has a big play in India’s railway expansion – the digital signalling and electronic interlocking systems on the Udhampur-Baramulla rail link that includes the awe-inspiring Chenab bridge are by it, as is the automatic fare collection system on 276 stations of Delhi Metro. It has a role in several key clean electricity projects, payments solutions, building systems and more.

“We are part and parcel of India’s infrastructure growth story,” says Kaushal. Through its social innovation business, Hitachi is also playing a key role in Digital India with solutions in education and healthcare (through a joint venture with MGRM net).

“My vision for Hitachi’s economy (order book) in India is to achieve a target of $20 billion by 2031,” says Kaushal. With that objective in mind, he says, India will host the board of Hitachi in December for its big meeting. 

Incidentally, the oldest overseas presence of Hitachi anywhere in the world was India, which it entered in 1933, bringing in table fans. “Post-independence, in the 50s, the first locomotive for the Indian Railways came from Hitachi. The turbines for what is our textbook folklore project, Bhakra Nangal, came from Hitachi,” reels off Kaushal. 

Career detours

“The only ambition I had when growing up was to become a civil servant, because I had not seen any other life,” says Kaushal, whose dad M B Kaushal was an illustrious cop. He was Delhi’s police commissioner, and later Secretary, internal security, Ministry of Home affairs, playing a crucial role in talks with Hizbul Mujahideen. Not surprisingly, Kaushal calls his dad his biggest inspiration. After finishing his studies at Delhi’s Modern School, he opted for history at St Stephens with the idea of cracking the civil services, but didn’t clear the exams. 

He took the disappointment on the chin. “Sports teaches you to lose for many years before you learn to win,” says Kaushal, who was a national level swimmer during his school and college days, and points out how facing setbacks (such as making it to the probable list at first and then be only in the reserves, before making it to the team) taught him to never give up.

So he went off to do an MBA at Columbia University with the idea of coming back home to take the civil services exams again. Instead, he ended up doing four masters, including one in economics, one in law, and one in international affairs and got an assignment in the Economic Policy Unit at the World Bank in Washington. “The joke in my family is that I didn’t study enough till class 12 and so had to make up later,” he grins.

Dressed informally in a T-shirt and jeans, the tall and fit Kaushal looks every inch the fanatic sportsman he is. He says he does not miss even a single day’s run or swim, whichever city he is in. He also visits a temple every day. “My father felt that a policeman’s children had greater chances of being spoiled and told us we had to bow our heads every day,” he says. That habit prevails till date.

We are meeting at his sprawling bungalow that is enviably close to the lovely Lodhi Gardens in Delhi. Three days a week, like the rest of his team, he works out of home. The beautiful wood-panelled living room is filled with books on an eclectic range of subjects, including the two world wars. Lunch is aptly enough Japanese fare ordered from Asian Haus, known for its authentic flavours, and is delectable and unfussy – a choice of exotic veg in teriyaki sauce and a Katsu curry chicken served with steamed rice, followed by a fruit platter and green tea. The table ware and cups used are exquisite and clearly from Japan.

Kaushal says he loves experimenting with all sorts of cuisines. “I feel food is a window to a culture,” he says, sharing some amusing food adventures from his visits to Shanghai. “I like Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Indian food for all occasions and continental/English only for breakfast,” he says. In Delhi, one of his favourite restaurants, he says, is Bukhara at the ITC hotel, praising it for consistency in quality.

Banking on India

All set to return to India from the World Bank assignment, he found himself in Hong Kong instead, where he looked after India for the investment banking unit of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), which in the 1980s, he says had a big stake in Goldman Sachs. “In economics there is an overshooting model – so I overshot to Hong Kong,” he grins. “But I also signed up to be strategy advisor at the India investment centre at the Department of economic affairs, Ministry of Finance, so I had a small room here in Delhi,” he says.

Those were interesting times at SMBC. “We grew the business from overseas lending and structured some interesting deals. We were advisors to Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation. And then we set up a non-banking finance company, a private equity fund for infrastructure together with the government of Japan, and also put some equity in Kotak Mahindra Bank, which was a great experience,” says Kaushal.

He then became CEO of SMBC India. “We put in a billion dollars of equity and the size of the business went up 10 times in terms of what we lent. We introduced new things like green financing, untied credits where the Japanese taxpayer was somewhat subsidising credit enhancement for a cleaner environment in Asia coming out of power projects in India,” says Kaushal. 

 “The bank was a great experience,” he says, but when the opportunity came to move to industry, he took it. “Investment banking is intellectually fertile but you are only facilitating other people’s business, whereas here was a chance to actually run and grow a business. And Hitachi was such a remarkably unique company.”

Apart from its long history of relationships in manufacturing in India, Hitachi had also got involved in the digital revolution taking place in India. “So basic system integration, storage solutions, servers and connectivity, building access for payments, there were all these businesses. And we also got into a joint venture with MGRM, which was on education and health and now getting into agriculture,” explains Kaushal. 

Even as Kaushal was taking charge at Hitachi India, he says, the character of the company was beginning to change. “Hitachi had already decided to merge Italian giant Ansaldo’s rail business globally, and subsequently, even Thales came on board. ABB’s Power Grids and Global Logic came subsequent to that. And it changed the personality of Hitachi’s existence in India,” says Kaushal, because large parts of these setups, acquired globally by Hitachi, were already in India in a big way, some even listed.

The strategy

Given the wide exposure Hitachi has in mobility (railways and metros), energy, payments, and digital systems in India, where does he see the biggest opportunity and demand? Is it metro rail, which is expanding enormously and seeing innovations like an underwater (Kolkata, where it did the signalling) project and driverless based signalling (Chennai) or in clean energy projects like the bi-directional Raigarh Pugallur ultra high voltage direct current link. “It’s coming from 360 degrees, from all sides now. Some may be hitting faster and some are gradually coming into being,” he says. 

To get double digits in India is challenging if you try to push just a supply side strategy, reflects Kaushal. “But if you link it to consumption economies, connected societies, new demand areas – then you’re serving a buffet meal with the variety of services that you can offer,” says Kaushal. 

Kaushal also says when planning investments, they look at stuff like who is the beneficiary (user), how much is the propensity to pay (varies from state government to state government), and what is the speed at which the J-curve will happen. “Then I should accordingly pace myself, and space the investments,” he says. 

He says it’s only the second time in the history of Hitachi that a global board meeting will be held in India. “It happened once before when India got elevated as regional headquarters in 2012. Now it’s happening because India is maturing into becoming a more significant contributor for Hitachi globally. The future of Hitachi is woven closely with the success of our business, not just in India for India, but also from India to the globe,” he says.

Published on September 13, 2025