 "Nikesh Arora, president and CEO of SoftBank Corp")
Softbank’s loss may well turn out to be India’s gain. India continues to be high on the radar for global Indian-origin CEOs, after they move on from the high table in global corporate sweepstakes. Ex-Googler and former Softbank president Nikesh Arora could possibly get more actively involved in the Indian start-up ecosystem – a space he knows well. This will be in line with what other global Indian-origin CEOs have done, such as ex-CEO of Citigroup Vikram Pandit, former Deutsche Bank co-CEO Anshu Jain, or Jaspal Bindra, the former Asia-Pacific chief executive at Standard Chartered Bank.
After putting in his papers in 2012, Pandit has over the last two-three years has emerged as an active start-up investor in the financial technology space. He had earlier teamed up with investment banker Nimesh Kampani to apply for bank licence in India. Pandit had to exit from Citigroup following difference with the management, after steering the bank through the global financial crisis.
Former Deutsche Bank co-CEO Anshu Jain after resigning from the German Bank in June 2015, was recently reported to have teamed up with ex-colleague from Deutsche Bank Bhupinder Singh to launch a non-bank finance company in the country that would lend to the SME sector.
Jain, along with the German bank’s other co-CEO Jurgen Fitschen, had quit after the German regulator expressed unhappiness over the way the bank handled investigation into alleged manipulation of benchmark interest rates by bank employees. Though Jain and Fitschen were not accused of taking part in the manipulation, the incident occurred when Jain was head of investment banking at the bank.
Recently Jaspal Bindra, the former Asia-Pacific chief executive at Standard Chartered Bank, decided to turn entrepreneur picking up stake in a domestic financial services company.
The silver lining for Nikesh Arora’s exit from Softbank could well be that it will free him up to play a more proactive role in the Indian start-up ecosystem.
