Ajay Harinath Singh Greatest Brand Leader 2018-2019

Ashishkumar Chauhan
A Prodigy Committed
to Nation Building
Highly respected as a living legend, who has prudently contributed to permanent improvements in the
Indian economy, Mr. Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD & CEO of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is credited with
setting up India’s first fully automated screen-based trading system and the first commercial satellite
communications network
Paragon of economic excellence, Mr.
Chauhan’s prominence in the Indian
economy may be judged by the facts
that he is the father of modern financial
derivatives in India, is one of the founders
of India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE),
and has created several path-breaking
frameworks in India such as the Nifty Index
and NSE certifications in financial markets.
Joining the first stock exchange of Asia,
Bombay Stock Exchange, as Deputy CEO
in 2009, Mr. Chauhan became its CEO
in 2012, and consistently worked on its
technological and financial upgradation
till it became the fastest Exchange in the
world with less than 6 microseconds’
response time.
Mr. Chauhan shares his delight, “We
are the fastest stock exchange in the
world, with 6 micro seconds in response
time. It is 10 times faster than the second
fastest which has 60 micro seconds. In a
competitive scenario, where you are the
challenger, you have to keep evolving. The
technological advances have definitely
helped improve the perception of BSE.”
He was also instrumental in bringing
further refinements such as introducing
Mobile Trading for the first time in
India, a state-of-the-art online real-time
surveillance system, and introducing
several market-leading products such as
SME, Currencies, Mutual Funds, Corporate
Bonds, Offer for Sale, Offer to Buy and
many more.
Unparalleled Excellence since
the Outset
Educationally qualified as a BTech in
Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay
and a PGDM from IIM Kolkata, he was
recruited from the campus as an officer by
the Industrial Development Bank of India
(now IDBI Bank) in 1991. Soon after, he
came in limelight as the Government of
India commenced the establishment of
the National Stock Exchange. Mr. Chauhan
joined the core team that founded the NSE,
and for the next seven years from 1993
to 2000, busied himself in instituting its
equities and derivatives markets.
He took care of NSE’s market operations,
memberships, clearing and settlement,
surveillance, regulations, sales, marketing,
IT, premises and so on, and created the
trading infrastructure of NSE. He was also
instrumental in creating NSE-50 (Nifty) that
is today the most traded index in derivatives
in India, NSE’s certification in Financial
Markets (NCFM), and IPOs through screen
and several other innovations in the Indian
capital markets.
Creating a powerful reputation in the
Indian economy, he continued his exemplary
and ingenious work and inaugurated NSE’s
Information Technology infrastructure
with its first commercial satellite telecom
network in India, and then helped in the
conceptualization of National Securities
Clearing Corporation (NSCCL) and in
the establishment of National Securities
“We are the fastest stock exchange in the
world in response time, 10 times faster
than the second fastest”
Depository Limited (NSDL). During his
NSE tenure, he was part of a team of three
that maintained NSE’s risk management
system and together developed what is
a standard practice today – a metric to
measure liquidity in stocks, called impact
cost.
For the next nine years, from 2000 to
2009, he worked with the Reliance Group as
its President and Chief Information Officer,
and also chose to fulfill responsibilities
as the CEO of the Mumbai Indians cricket
team in its formative years.
In 2009, he decided to come on board
the Bombay Stock Exchange as its Deputy
CEO, and after four years was appointed
as its CEO in 2012. Bringing several
innovative practices since then, he has
made BSE the fastest Exchange in the
World and successfully completed the
IPO of BSE in 2017, oversubscribed by
51 times the expectations. He has also
been instrumental in establishing India’s
First International Exchange. He has also
led BSE into trading of gold and silver
contracts, and consequently entering
into the commodity derivatives segment,
making it India’s first universal stock
exchange that offers all assets classes,
including equity, mutual funds, currency,
and commodity in its portfolio.
His consistent ingenuity in numerous
fields for about three decades has
brought him peerless expertise in
Information Technology, Finance, Markets,
Micro structure of markets, cricket,
telecommunications, organized retail, Oil
& Gas refining and Indian social issues.
Distinguished Recognitions
With his illustrious performance, winning
awards has become natural for him, as his
national and international honours include
being Distinguished Fellow, Institute of
Directors; Distinguished Alumnus Award,
IIM Calcutta; CEO of the Year, Diamond
Sabre Awards; Indian Business Leader
of the Year, Horasis Interlaken; RH Patil
Award for Excellence in Financial Services;
Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian
Institute of Technology, Bombay; Best CEO
in the Financial Markets in the Asia Pacific,
Asian Banker; Zee Business Award for
Special Contribution in Commodities and
Capital Market; TOP 50 CIOs, Information
Week; and many more.
Future Strategies
Ever ready to foray into newer segments,
he has plans to expand BSE into insurance
and power trading. His efforts towards
building a joint venture with the US-based
Ebix, the largest insurance exchange in
the world, have bore fruits, and in the
last week of October 2019 BSE obtained
an in-principle approval for Certificate of
Registration to act as a direct insurance
broker under the IRDAI (Insurers Brokers)
Regulations, 2018.
Mr. Chauhan shares, “BSE has started a
start-up platform for anyone raising small
funds of Rs 1–5 crore. We already have an
SME platform. Sebi is also trying to bring
in rules for larger high-tech companies.
When some of these companies turn
unicorn, they will be an already-listed
unicorn. So one needs to see if you want
to have the existing unicorns go for IPOs
or new companies that are already listed
become unicorns.
BSE’s commodities market has also
started in a promising way and looks set
for a multi-fold growth in the next few
years.”
18 | india’s greatest leaders 2019-20 |