International banker Ashok Vaswani to head Kotak Mahindra Bank
Kotak Mahindra Bank on Saturday said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of Ashok Vaswani as the bank's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD & CEO) for a period of three years. Vaswani, who has worked with Barclays in the recent past, will succeed Uday Kotak who quit as MD of the bank effective September 1.
At present, Vaswani is President of Pagaya Technologies Ltd — a US-Israeli AI Fintech.
He is also on the Board of the London Stock Exchange Group, the SP Jain Institute of Global Management, UK and supports various philanthropic organisations, including Pratham, and Lend-AHand.
The appointment is subject to shareholders' approval, Kotak Mahindra Bank said in a statement.
Vaswani has a proven track record spanning three-and-a-half decades, initially at Citigroup and more recently, at Barclays, of building and growing 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, it said.
Interim MD & CEO Kotak Mahindra Bank Dipak Gupta said, «Ashok brings with him values and experience that align with Kotak's vision to transform into a tech-enabled, customer-centric financial institution for the future.»
Founder director of the bank Uday Kotak said Ashok is a word-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 was set to retire from his executive role in December. However, it was cut short four months ahead of schedule.
