The 55-year-old Talwar, who had earlier spent 28 years at Citibank, building its thriving Asia business and eventually heading its European and U.S. consumer banking operation, says that his friends told him: "You have a unique set of skills. Why not leverage them for yourself instead of getting back into the corporate rat race?"

So Talwar formed a private equity vehicle, London-based Sabre Capital Worldwide. Now Sabre is leading a group of investors taking a controlling 48 percent stake in India's ailing Centurion Bank for $70 million. And Sabre (a play on Talwar's name, which means "sword" in Hindi) is also in talks to take over three other troubled banks -- one in West Africa, another that operates in Dubai and Bahrain and the third in an unnamed South Asian country (not India).

Talwar reports that since leaving StanChart he is spending more time with his wife, daughter and two sons; has cut his golf handicap; and doesn't miss the "diaries filled up two years in advance with board meetings, overseas trips and ceremonial stuff, and working 12- to 15-hour days." What's more, he says, he finds the work "professionally and emotionally satisfying." If he turns those banks around, it could be financially satisfying as well.