Ashok Vaswani to step down as Kotak Mahindra Bank CEO in December

2 min readJun 27, 2026 07:36 PM IST

With over 35 years of global banking experience, Vaswani held leadership roles at Citigroup, Barclays and Pagaya Technologies. (Image: Kotak Mahindra Bank/Website)

Ashok Vaswani, Managing Director & CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, has decided not to seek reappointment upon completion of his current term on December 31, 2026.

The bank said the decision to step down after the current tenure is due to personal reasons.

“The board has, at its meeting held today, respected his decision and has initiated the process for the appointment of a new Managing Director & CEO. The process will be completed within applicable regulatory timelines,” the bank said in an exchange filing.

The bank’s board formally appointed him as MD & CEO for a three-year term, effective January 1, 2024.

Uday Kotak, founder of Kotak Mahindra Bank, stepped down as MD and CEO in September 2023.

Kotak Mahindra Bank is the fourth largest private sector bank with a market capitalisation of Rs 4.06 lakh crore.

With over 35 years of global banking experience, Vaswani held leadership roles at Citigroup, Barclays and Pagaya Technologies. At Barclays, he led the transformation from analog to digital, redesigning tech architecture and customer journeys.

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He was CEO of Barclays UK and later of its Global Consumer, Private, Corporate and Payments businesses. At Citigroup, he served as CEO Asia Pacific. He also served as President of Pagaya, scaling its AI fintech operations. He also served on boards including LSEG, VISA and SP Jain Institute.

He holds degrees in Commerce, is a Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary and has completed Executive Education from Stanford.