US President Joseph Biden recommended Indian-American corporate leader Ajay Banga to lead the World Bank on February 23. If approved by the World Bank executive committee, Ajay Banga will become the inaugural Indian-American to lead any of the world’s two leading international financial organisations, the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.
The World Bank executive directors will approve Banga’s nomination. Being the largest stakeholder, the US nomination is generally chosen. The World Bank president serves as the ex officio head of the Council of Executive Directors of the International Development Association and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Early Life
- Banga grew up in India. After graduating from Hyderabad Public School, he acquired a Bachelor’s certificate in Economics from the University of Delhi’s St. Stephen’s College and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
- He began his career at Nestle in 1981 before moving on to Pepsico and Citigroup. He also served as the chief executive officer of the financial services corporation Mastercard.
- Banga visited Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York shortly after the latter’s election in 2014, and the two addressed India’s prospects in the American corporate world.
- The Indian president honoured Banga the Padma Shri in 2016.
Some key facts
According to government officials, Ajay Banga is now the vice chairman of the commercial equity business General Atlantic, a US private equity company that has funded over $800 million in Electric vehicle charging technologies, renewable power, and sustainable farming.
He retired from Mastercard in December in the year 2021 after 12 years as Chief Executive Officer; where administration representatives mentioned that he helped 500 million financially excluded individuals enter the economic growth, avoided layoffs of the company’s 19,000 employees during the Covid-19 disease outbreak, and led tasks on the environment, gender, and sustainable farming. He has almost 30 years of commercial expertise, having held several positions at Mastercard and serving on the councils of Kraft Foods, the American Red Cross, and Dow Inc.
Significantly, he became the first Indian-born candidate for World Bank President. Joseph Biden praised Ajay Banga’s efforts and stated that he is exceptionally qualified to run the World Bank now. Ajay, according to Biden, has vital expertise in organising public-private resources to address the most pressing crises. Banga’s task in India and other evolving markets, his “fascination” with enhancing financial participation, and his deep understanding of cutting-edge technologies, according to Luis Alberto Moreno, former president of the Inter-American Development Bank, could contribute to bridging the divide between rich and developing countries.
According to Krishnamurthy Subramanian, India’s executive head at the International Monetary Fund and a former senior economic advisor to the Indian government, India was anticipated to back Banga’s candidature. “It’s a sophisticated solution.” At a 2014 session with students at NYU Stern, a school of management, he joked that he loved his stay at IIM-A “maybe a bit too much!” He complimented the instructors and mentioned meeting his wife there.
According to the Indian Express, during his address, he emphasised the need for diversity in business, saying, “To state the obvious, I tend to stand out in a room – turbans and beards will do that to you. My part-time hobby is being ‘randomly’ searched at airports! And I run a global company. That’s not exactly common for someone who looks like me… But I realised very early in my career that if I wasn’t comfortable with myself, then I couldn’t succeed. It’s critical that you figure out who you are and be comfortable with it.”
