Mumbai-headquartered Kotak Mahindra Bank on Saturday announced that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of Ashok Vaswani as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the bank for a period of three years, likely from January 1, 2024. Vaswani will succeed Uday Kotak, who has quit as the MD of the bank in September this year.
Uday Kotak was set to retire from his executive role in December but it was cut short by around four months. Kotak’s exit from the bank was said to be due to personal reasons, as per news agency PTI.
His exit came as the central bank capped the tenure of a private sector bank’s MD and CEO at 15 years. Commenting on Vaswani’s appointment, Kotak said that the bank is proud to “bring a ‘Global Indian’ home to build Kotak and India of tomorrow”.
“I am delighted that the RBI has approved our recommendation, Ashok Vaswani, as the next CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank. Ashok is a world class leader and banker with digital and customer focus. I am proud that we bring a ‘Global Indian’ home to build Kotak and India of tomorrow,” Kotak said in a post on X previously known as Twitter.
Who is Ashok Vaswani?
Currently, Ashok Vaswani is the president of the US-Israeli AI fintech company Pagaya Technologies Ltd. He has also worked with the London-based multinational bank Barclays as its Chief Digital Officer from November 2021-July 2022 and as the bank’s Global Consumer and Payments CEO from April 2019-November 2021.
Vaswani was also the CEO of Barclays UK from March 2016-April 2019 and oversaw the ban’s retail and business banking operations, UK Cards and UK Wealth verticals. Before his stint at Barclays, Vaswani had an 8-year-long innings at the Citi Group.
Both these stints had Vaswani leverage forward-leaning technology with a vision to deliver strong bottom-line growth apart from building and growing businesses at scale, building result-oriented teams, and establishing transformational partnerships, according to Kotak Mahindra Bank.
He has also headed divisions such as personal and corporate banking, retail banking, and retail and business banking during his stint at Barclays. He was also the CEO of Barclays Africa from October 2011-September 2012 and the CEO of the bank’s Cards Europe from February-October 2010.
Besides this, Uday Kotak’s successor is also on the Board of the London Stock Exchange Group and the SP Jain Institute of Global Management, UK. He also supports several philanthropic organisations including Pratham and Lend-A-Hand.
Vaswani is an alumnus of Mumbai’s Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics. He is a qualified chartered accountant and company secretary. He has also done an Executive course from the Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
(With PTI inputs)
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