NSE picks IDFC's Vikram Limaye as new CEO

Formal appointment pending as formalities pending at Limaye's end

The country's largest bourse National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) has picked IDFC’s Vikram Limaye as its chief executive officer and managing director. The decision was taken at NSE’s board meeting held on Friday.

The exchange, however, has not yet made a formal announcement on the selection as formalities need to be completed at Limaye’s end. Limaye is currently the MD and CEO of infrastructure finance firm IDFC. On January 30, Limaye was also named to a four-member panel set up by the Supreme Court to run the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the apex body for the richest cricket body in the world. 

Sources said Limaye would have to inform IDFC’s board about his decision to take the top job at NSE. The exchange will also need the approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for the appointment. The appointment of NSE’s chief is important as it comes ahead of its initial public offering (IPO). NSE had filed its draft prospectus with Sebi last month for a Rs 10,000 crore IPO. 

After the abrupt departure of its MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna, the exchange appointed group president J Ravichandran as the interim CEO. Sources said NSE was looking for a candidate who would balance the needs of all stakeholders, including the government, Sebi and the broking community while ensuring the exchange continued with its dominant position. 

HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, also former chairman of IDFC said “Limaye is an excellent choice, he is capable and fits perfectly. "At IDFC, Limaye has worked with various state and central governments, finance ministry and regulators like RBI and Sebi. That experience will definitely help.”

Limaye is a chartered accountant and has done an MBA in finance and multinational management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has spent more than a decade at IDFC. Prior to his current stint, he worked on Wall Street with Credit Suisse First Boston for eight years in diverse roles spanning investment banking, capital markets, structured finance and credit portfolio management.

Limaye has contributed to various committees of the government and industry associations on a range of topics surrounding infrastructure, economic policy, markets and trade. He has been a speaker at various domestic and international conferences and has been part of international government delegations for infrastructure and foreign direct investment into India.

NSE’s board of directors had started the process for selection of a new MD and CEO in early December and had set up a selection committee according to Sebi guidelines.
 

The selection committee comprised two public interest directors at NSE, Dinesh Kanabar and Mohandas Pai, and two independent experts, Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group, and Usha Thorat, former deputy governor at RBI. Executive search firm Egon Zehnder has been hired to screen and shortlist applicants. NSE had issued an advertisement on December 20 for applications. The bourse received about 90 applications for the job, most of them from non-financial market professionals.

Besides Limaye, IAS officer Sanjeev Kaushik, NSE's senior executive Ravi Varanasi, IFCI’s deputy managing director Sanjeev Kaushik and Indostar Capital CEO Vimal Bhandari were some of the candidates in the race for the top job at NSE.