Kotak Mahindra Bank appoints Ashok Vaswani as MD & CEO from Jan 1

The board of Kotak Mahindra Bank on Friday appointed Ashok Vaswani as managing director and chief executive officer for a period of three years with effect from January 1, 2024.

This comes as Dipak Gupta's term as the MD & CEO of the bank comes to an end on December 31, 2023. Gupta took over as the interim CEO till December 2023 after founder-CEO Uday Kotak stepped down four months ahead of his retirement.

Ashok Vaswani, 62, has a track record spanning three and a half decades, initially at Citigroup and thereafter, at Barclays, of building and growing global businesses at scale, nurturing teams, establishing transformational partnerships, leveraging forward-leaning technology, with a compelling business vision to deliver strong bottom-line growth, India's fourth largest lender by market cap says in a statement.

Vaswani brings with him significant executional experience with a high degree of compliance and industrial strength across corporate and consumer businesses, it says. Vaswani was chief executive officer of Barclays Bank, U.K. and subsequently CEO of their Global Consumer, Private, Corporate and Payments businesses and Member of the Group Executive Committee. Earlier, he was CEO Citigroup Asia Pacific and Member of the Citigroup Global Operating & Management Committees. Vaswani also built and ran various country and regional businesses across geographies. He has been President of Pagaya Technologies Ltd, a US-Israeli AI fintech.

Vaswani also supports various philanthropic organisations, including Pratham, and Lend-A-Hand. He has been on the board of several institutions, such as the London Stock Exchange Group; the SP Jain Institute of Global Management, UK; Former Trustee, Citizens Advice Bureau; Former Chairman, Retail Committee, British Bankers Association; Former Chairman of the Board, Entercard; Former Board member, Telenor; Former Board Member of VISA Asia Pacific and VISA, UK; Former Director and Member of the Audit and Technology Committee for Barclays Africa Group Ltd and Former Director, UK Finance.

Vaswani is a Bachelor of Commerce, Economics and Accountancy, from the Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics (Bombay University), CA from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, CS from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and Executive Education from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Earlier in September, Uday Kotak, in his resignation letter to Prakash Apte, chairman, board of directors, Kotak Mahindra Bank, said he mulled over the decision of resignation for some time and believed this was the right thing for the institution. "Over the next few months, I am going to be significantly occupied with some personal and family commitments. My elder son's marriage functions are being planned. Consequently, considering the proximity of these events to the end of my tenure, I thought it appropriate to hand over the baton and stagger the transition," Kotak had said.