Kotak Mahindra Bank welcomed Ashok Vaswani as the Bank’s next managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO), effective January 1. His appointment to the post will be effective for three years.

He succeeded Dipak Gupta, the interim MD and CEO. Deepak was given interim responsibility after founder director Uday Kotak stepped down as the head of the bank, effective September 1, 2023.

Ashok has joined the Kotak Mahindra Bank with experience spanning three and a half decades. In his previous role, Ashok was Chief Executive Officer of Barclays Bank, UK, and subsequently CEO of their Global Consumer, Private, Corporate, and Payments businesses and a Member of the Group Executive Committee. Earlier, Ashok was CEO of Citigroup Asia Pacific and a Member of the Citigroup Global Operating & Management Committees. He also built and ran various country and regional businesses across geographies. He is President of Pagaya Technologies Ltd - a US-Israeli AI Fintech.

Ashok 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. Ashok 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.