NSE chief Ramkrishna quits abruptly
MYSTERY MOVE Bourse accepts decision, sets up panel to find new chief, names Ravichandran to hold temporary charge
MUMBAI : Chitra Ramkrishna, managing director and chief executive officer of National Stock Exchange, the country’s largest bourse, has resigned with immediate effect. J Ravichandran, currently group president, will hold charge till a new CEO and is appointed.
The development, coming just months ahead of the stock exchange’s planned share sale, has surprised the market.
The exchange said Ramkrishna quit for personal reasons and a selection committee has been set up to find a new MD and CEO.
“Ramkrishna had tendered her resignation due to personal reasons and expressed her desire to step down with immediate effect. The Board, while accepting her request, appreciated her sterling contribution to the growth of the organisation over the long years that she had been associated with it,” NSE said in a statement on Friday.
Ramkrishna, 52, had been with NSE since 1992. She was part of the team that set up the exchange and also served as joint managing director from September 2009, before she was appointed MD and CEO from April 2013. Her tenure was to end in March 2018.
She had succeeded Ravi Narain as the MD and CEO. Narain is currently vice-chairman at the exchange, while Ashok Chawla, former chairman of Competition Commission of India, is the chairman.
Ramkrishna was the first woman and only the third person to head the NSE since its inception two decades ago.
Last month, she was named chairperson of the board of World Federation of Exchanges, a global body of more than 200 market infrastructure providers, including exchanges.
Ramkrishna’s departure comes at a time the stock exchange is getting ready to hit the market with its initial public offering. NSE had appointed four investment bankers to manage its IPO in August. It had announced in June that it was planning to file papers for a domestic IPO by January 2017 and also for an overseas listing by April 2017.
Life Insurance Corp of India, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Strategic Holdings Mauritius and Tiger Global Management are some of the major investors in the National Stock Exchange.
NSE has also been under the regulatory radar and had been ordered by the Securities and Exchange Board of India earlier this year to audit its high-speed algorithmic trading amid allegations that some brokers who may have had a ‘co-location arrangement’ with the exchange may have got unfair access.