Two months after Gautam Banerjee took over as chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, he is trying to make India?s largest audit firm ?sing from the same hymn sheet?. It?s challenging as India is a tough place to do business with different cultures, languages et al. Banerjee, who was brought in at a time when the firm is clearly in a hurry to transform itself after the Satyam scam, says he?s trying to change mindsets, make the India practice more tuned to its international operations and is open to ideas of transformation. With India CEO elections due in March 2011, Banerjee tells Sudipta Datta he wants to prepare the firm for the future because ?India is one of our most important emerging markets? and why ?it will take a bit of time to put Satyam behind us?. Excerpts

You are looking after Singapore and India operations? Will that change?

We could have held an election when Ramesh Rajan stepped down as India chairman or chosen someone from within the network. When Ramesh quit, he had gone through three quarters of his term, which ends on March 2011. An election process in mid-term takes time and we wanted to do a bit of transformation of the firm. As COO of the firm?s East cluster, I have experience and have been long connected to India operations. It was agreed that until such time, we are ready for elections or even earlier when somebody can take over, I will look after India. I am doing both the jobs which takes up a lot of my spare time and holidays but it?s something which had to be done.

How has Satyam impacted your image and what are you doing to change perceptions?

When an auditor gets into the middle of a huge fraud like this, we do get tainted. But it was a management-led fraud, with the chairman himself perpetrating it with well thought out plans. While we regret that we were auditors and it happened in our watch, management-led fraud is difficult to pick up. This is something which countries like India and other emerging markets will have to guard against, for Satyam is not the first and last one. But the spotlight is on us, we can?t deny that. We are bringing in more critical analyses, more questioning, more skepticism into the process and asking hard questions. The whole infrastructure around audit and audit quality is being significantly spruced up. But client loyalty has been amazing. Very few clients have actually turned back and not reappointed us in the audit arena. But it will take a bit of time to put it behind us and we are doing whatever it takes to come out of this.

Of late, there has been an exodus of sorts from PwC. What?s being done to stem attrition?

The exit of the tax partners was a special situation. We had acquired Mumbai-based RMS business some years back, the leader of the practice saw an opportunity elsewhere and took the partners who were originally from RSM along with him.

How important is India to PwC?

We do see India as one of our most important emerging markets. There are a few large emerging markets, China, India, eastern European countries like Russia, Brazil. We had started our focus on India 3-4 years ago when we looked at growth and acquisition. We do need to bring in the strength of the network into India in its growth stage. India is about 1-2% of our global business and we want it to grow to 5-10% over time.

For how long will international partners help India operations?

From a business point of view India is a challenging market because you have the public sector, you have a vibrant private sector and within the private sector you have family-owned businesses. The economy is going through rapid change and growth. We have to manage our own practice and provide service to our clients and that?s why international partners have stepped in, to provide that expertise. We are moving some partners to India, particularly Indian origin partners from the US and the UK for two-year stints or so.

What are the key focus areas in India?

We are concentrating on three capital projects along with infrastructure, healthcare and the government. There is a lot of opportunity in the infrastructure sector as the economy grows 8-10%.

In doing company audits, we will be selective in growth, our first priority will be to serve good leading corporates and MNCs operating in India.