BSE appoints a deputy CEO

The Bombay Stock Exchange just added another senior member to its cadre. Ashish Chauhan has taken over as the deputy chief executive officer of the organisation. “The appointment was made last week,” confirmed a BSE spokesperson.

The appointment had been reported to be linked to an acquisition of Marketplace Technologies, which provides IT solutions with a focus on exchange-traded equities, derivatives and commodities markets in India. Chauhan is said to be a stakeholder in the firm which has been valued at Rs40 crore.

Attempts to contact Chauhan were not successful. The BSE spokesperson denied that Marketplace Technologies was in any way connected with Chauhan’s appointment.
Chauhan was earlier with the team involved with the setting up of the National Stock Exchange. He moved on to Reliance Industries and was serving as chief information
officer before accepting the BSE offer.

The BSE has been making a number of moves to gain back ground lost to the NSE. Prior to the coming of the NSE in April 1993, the BSE had a virtual monopoly over all trading that took place in exchanges in India. In 2009, the BSE’s share of the trading volumes have dropped to 27%.

The BSE had recently hired 37-year-old Madhu Kannan as CEO, its youngest-ever, to revitalise the exchange. Kannan was previously managing director (corporate strategy) with Bank of America-Merrill Lynch based in New York, and held various senior roles across businesses at the NYSE Euronext as well. Ashish Chauhan was also reportedly in the running for the top job at the time.

Prior to Kannan’s appointment in the second week of May, BSE had been running without a head after Rajnikant Patel put in his papers.