AZB & Partners Mumbai will hire former State Bank of India (SBI) chairwoman Arundhati Bhattacharya as a senior consultant, we reliably understand.

AZB Mumbai managing partner Zia Mody did not respond to requests for comment since earlier today.

Bhattacharya was the first female chair of SBI and has had a long career since 1977 with a variety of SBI companies, working her way up the career ladder.

In 2016, she was amongst Forbes magazine’s 25 most powerful women in the world and has received a number of other accolades.

She had retired in October 2017.

Several days ago it had also been reported that she had also joined the board of Reliance Industries.

Bhattacharya joins the ranks of senior and retired public and private sector bankers who’ve joined law firms in similar roles.

AZB had hired RBI executive director G Padmanabhan in 2015, but it’s mostly been Amarchand Mumbai that’s been the frontrunner there.

Ex-SBI senior hand Pradeep Kumar Bagga joined Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas in 2015, Amarchand Mangaldas, as it then was, nabbed ex-Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Anand Sinha in 2014, and earlier this year, ex-SEBI chief UK Sinha had also joined CAM.

Editor’s note: Are there any others we’ve missed?

Photo by Biswarup Ganguly