Shareholders of the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) on Tuesday approved the appointment of Vikram Limaye as managing director and CEO, the exchange said on its website.
At an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders, NSE had sought their approval of Limaye’s appointment as managing director and CEO for five years and for his remuneration package of Rs8 crore.
With this approval, Limaye needs only approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to become the first outside hire to head the leading exchange.
Limaye will succeed Chitra Ramkrishna, who left NSE owing to personal reasons on 2 December, a little more than a year before her tenure was to end.
Following her resignation, the board of NSE appointed Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd chairman Anand Mahindra, former Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Usha Thorat, founder of Dhruva Advisors Llp Dinesh Kanabar and former Infosys Ltd director Mohandas Pai to choose Ramkrishna’s successor.
J. Ravichandran, who used to serve as group president of finance and legal and company secretary at NSE, was named the interim managing director and CEO.
Limaye, who will be the first NSE CEO from outside the founding team that set up the exchange in the 1990s, will have his hands full at the helm.
The stock exchange has filed a draft prospectus with the regulator for an initial public offering after a long battle with existing shareholders who had wanted the bourse to list earlier.
“Listing is an immediate priority of NSE,” Limaye said earlier in an interview.
Secondly, Sebi is examining allegations against NSE that it gave preferential and unfair access to some brokers on its algorithmic trading platform.
Sebi is studying a forensic audit report on this issue prepared by Deloitte India. Based on the examination, Sebi has asked NSE to fix responsibility and take corrective action. NSE is redrafting its algorithmic policy.
Limaye served as the head of infrastructure lending firm Infrastructure Development Finance Co. Ltd (IDFC) for four years. A chartered accountant with a master’s degree in business administration, Limaye started his career with Arthur Andersen in Mumbai in 1987. He has worked in the audit and business advisory services groups of Arthur Andersen and EY and the consumer banking groups of Citibank and Credit Suisse.
