Past: President, Pagaya
Present: CEO & MD, Kotak Mahindra Bank
The Reserve Bank of India has granted approval for the appointment of Ashok Vaswani as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. This approval is valid for a three-year term starting from the date he assumes work, as stated in the bank’s official notification to the exchange. The appointment must be finalized prior to January 1, 2024, according to the bank’s announcement.
Ashok Vaswani, an accomplished banker with experience in leading global banks, will take the helm. This move is notable because the expectation had been for an internal candidate to assume the top leadership position.
Ashok Vaswani has been a career banker for three and a half decades. He was initially at Citigroup and more recently, at Barclays and has built and grown global businesses at scale, nurturing winning teams, establishing transformational partnerships, leveraging forward leaning technology, with a compelling business vision to deliver strong bottom-line growth.
Ashok was Chief Executive Officer of Barclays Bank, UK and subsequently CEO of their Global Consumer, Private, Corporate and Payments businesses and Member of the Group Executive Committee. Earlier, Ashok was CEO Citigroup Asia Pacific and Member of the Citigroup Global Operating & Management Committees. He also built and ran various country and regional businesses across geographies.
Currently, he is President of Pagaya Technologies Ltd – a US-Israeli AI Fintech. Ashok is also on the Board of the London Stock Exchange Group and the SP Jain Institute of Global Management, UK.
On September 1 of this year, Uday Kotak, the founding CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, relinquished his role as CEO. The expectation was that one of the dedicated internal candidates would succeed him. However, the selection of Vaswani is intriguing because he brings extensive executional expertise, a strong commitment to compliance, and a robust background in both corporate and consumer business sectors.
