DBS Bank India Strengthens Leadership Team with Key Senior Appointments

DBS Bank India has announced two key appointments who will head core business operations. Ambuj Chandna has been made Managing Director (MD) and head of consumer banking group, at DBS Bank India, taking over from Prashant Joshi. Chandna was previously the president and Head of Consumer Assets at Kotak Mahindra Bank. Santanu Mitra, erstwhile MD and head of digital economy group, institutional banking, DBS Bank Singapore, joins the position of MD and country head corporate banking (large and midcap) in DBS Bank India.

Both leadership roles will be under the managing director and CEO of DBS Bank India, Rajat Verma, who had this to say on the appointments, "India is one of DBS' core markets and over more than three decades in the country, the franchise has developed, recording a consistent growth pattern in recent years". The new leadership appointments will allow us to further build on the robust momentum of the bank in India, drawing from our digital capabilities, the physical reach and distribution and our Asian network to serve our customers more comprehensively. We are pleased to welcome Ambuj and Santanu to their new positions at DBS and are certain that their broad wealth of experience will be extremely valuable in taking us to our next level of growth".

Ambuj Chandna, a banking veteran with close to three decades of experience, was earlier associated with Kotak Mahindra Bank. As part of his new assignment, he will manage DBS Bank India's consumer banking business, wealth proposition (DBS Treasures), digital banking, and customer acquisition to enhance the bank's consumer banking business. Chandna was in senior roles at ING Vysya Bank, Fullerton Financial Holdings, and Citibank prior to joining Kotak. He holds an MBA from the Institute of Management Studies, Indore, and Master of Science in Strategic Marketing Leadership from Henley Business School, London.

Santanu Mitra, who has been with DBS Singapore since 2014 will be heading corporate banking (large and midcap) at DBS Bank India. In his new position, he will oversee the institutional banking business, targeting large and mid-corporates and MNCs. The past ten years, Mitra has been instrumental to the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) business in India, Singapore and United States, contributing to materially growing the TMT business. 

He led the establishment of the Digital Economy business across the startup ecosystem in 2020 that has since scaled up in core DBS markets. Having a career of twenty years, he has earlier served in leadership positions at PT AXIS Telekom Indonesia, and Macquarie Bank. Mitra is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and a Bachelor of Technology (Honors) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.