Random man allegedly masquerading as Singaporean bank CEO causes a sensation

Bank CEOs can show up in all manner of unusual places. You might find David Solomon on the London Underground, or Jamie Dimon in the Yellowstone mountains. Where you can't find ex-DBS CEO Piyush Gupta, however, is a café in Bali.

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In a post on LinkedIn earlier this week, ex-DBS employee Janney Hujic said she had stumbled across Gupta while in Indonesia, and that he was enlightening. Hujic left DBS in 2015 after just one year at the bank, and now runs a wellness retreat company. 

Hujic complimented Gupta's "humility and presence," while Gupta supposedly called her all-female expeditions an "incredible opportunity" for women. She said she was "truly humbled" by the experience. 

Later that day, though, Gupta revealed that the man in the café was not him. "Sorry to disillusion you. That isn’t me!" he said. Who was it, then?  Singaporean news site Mothership claims that the man was Indonesia-based teacher Kumar Subramanian. 

To complicate matters, Subramanian alleges that Hujic was aware that he was not Gupta during their conversation, and said he made it clear that he wasn't the ex-DBS boss. Hujic, in response to Gupta's comment that it wasn't him, implied the opposite; she said Subramanian "had [Gupta's] charms right on and he said all the right things." 

Hujic has kept the post public as thousands of reactions poured in. In an instagram story alleged to be Hujic by Wake Up Singapore, she claimed that the post was part of a planned strategy to promote her business. Misinformation, intentional or otherwise, can be good publicity.

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