Kotak Mahindra Bank on Saturday announced that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of Ashok Vaswani as CEO & MD of the private sector lender, succeeding Uday Kotak. The announcement comes as a surprise amid speculation that an internal candidate would be preferred for the job. The appointment will be for a three-year period.
Vaswani is presently president of Pagaya Technologies, a US-Israel fintech firm, and has worked with marquee banks, including Citigroup and Barclays. He 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, he was CEO for Citi’s Asia Pacific Consumer Bank. He was also a member of the Citigroup operating committee, the Citigroup management committee and global consumer planning group.
Posting about the appointment, Kotak, who is non-executive director on the bank’s board, wrote on X: “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.”
“I thank the board for entrusting me with the responsibility of leading Kotak Mahindra Bank’s journey to the next phase of growth. I am excited and honoured to carry forward the legacy of Uday who has built this world-class institution,” Vaswani said in response to his appointment.
As per RBI guidelines, a lender has to send three names in order of preference and the list may include an external candidate as well. Earlier, there were reports that bank veterans KVS Manian and Shanti Ekambaram were frontrunners to succeed Kotak.
The bank’s interim chief executive officer and managing director Dipak Gupta said Vaswani’s name was recommended by the board and the RBI has approved it. While making the appointment, the board looked at the expertise which Vaswani brings at a time when the banking industry is undergoing a change. Both Manian and Ekambaram will continue to be at the bank and are also a part of the board. “While there is already in-house expertise in various areas, it must be supplemented by global expertise,” Gupta said.
Kotak, who holds 26% in the bank, was set to retire from his executive role in December, but exited early due to personal reasons.
While Vaswani has spent a significant chunk of his career abroad, the appointment at one of India’s largest banks will be a ‘homecoming’ for the global banker, who had left India with only $14 in his pocket at 21 years of age. In a social media post in 2021, Vaswani wrote he was an aspiring spin bowler in his formative years who wanted to play in the Indian cricket team. Having lost his father at a young age, his mother had wanted him to be a doctor, but he chose a career in finance. A qualified chartered accountant and company secretary, like Kotak, he is also an alumnus of Mumbai’s Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics.
When asked in an interview about what he brought to the table as a leader, he had said: “I would love to tell you that I had a game plan, a master plan, and I’ve known exactly what to do country by country, but it’s absolutely not true. I rolled with the punches and I made a huge number of mistakes.”
He added that one of his biggest regrets is that he didn’t learn more languages… but compensated for that with a genuine interest in people, their behaviours and dynamics, and tried to understand what makes them tick. “There was no manual to start from, but plenty of opportunity to learn and experiment,” he said. His former collegemate will be keenly watching.