Shah was only 24 when he was co-opted into the core team setting up HDFC. A decadelater, when a number of financial institutions and banks came together to promote CRISIL,they needed a special sort of man: someone with energy and stature who could set up acredit rating agency whose honesty, absence of bias, and probity would be beyond reproach,so Indian capital markets could evolve into a fairer and safer place. Shah.
He may have been lucky—"I got the right breaks at the right time," hesays—but he has always done more than live up to the challenge. HDFC has transformedthe lives of millions of average Indians. And life before credit ratings or CRISIL seemssimply pre-historic today. "To set up a rating system in an environment which wasquite insular and closed called for an extremely professional set up.I attended each andevery rating meeting at CRISIL bar one," Shah recalls. So when legendary investorGeorge Soros came looking for someone to head his Indian outfit, he called up Shah. Who isnow waiting for the Government to ease up venture financing laws so he can usher in athird revolution in finance. Another first?
Yes, but that may not rank with one he has under his belt: Shah is the only Indianmanager to have had trees planted in his name in a foreign land. That’s how Israelshowed its gratitude for the rating consultancy CRISIL gave its government.