Ashish Chauhan: The man who steadied India’s financial markets

As the Indian stock market displayed its resilience in the face of West Asia-borne global securities crisis, the spotlight is on Ashish Kumar Chauhan, considered the “father of modern financial derivatives” in India.

Chauhan, an IIT Bombay and IIM Calcutta alumni, who was recently conferred the Forbes magazine’s Editor’s Choice Lifetime Award, steered the National Stock Exchange (NSE), which he helms amid the recent meltdown, urging investors to stay focused on long-term wealth creation, while highlighting India’s strong macroeconomic buffers.

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Under his stewardship, the exchange’s robust technology ensured seamless operations despite global uncertainty and extreme market volatility by demonstrating operational resilience, supported by high-performance technology infrastructure capable of handling massive trading volumes without disruption.

Insiders say that Chauhan believes in incremental change and invisible change as over dramatic efforts, and India’s stock market has gained much from his management foresight, which went around plugging loopholes so that periodic booms and busts tainted by scandals no longer occur.

Chauhan began his professional journey with the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) as an industrial finance officer. Rising through the ranks, he switched to a different sphere of India’s financial markets in 1993. As a member of the core founding team of NSE, he played a key role in building the equities and derivatives markets in the 1990s, helping lay the foundation of a modern, technology-driven trading ecosystem.

His early career was shaped during the aftermath of the Harshad Mehta Scam, a major financial fraud that exposed systemic loopholes. Chauhan has recalled losing Rs 50,000 during that period—equivalent to nearly sixteen months of his salary at the time—an experience that tested his mettle while strengthening his ability to look towards the long-term.

At NSE, he was instrumental in setting up the initial information technology backbone, including a commercial satellite telecom network that enabled reliable, high-speed connectivity across the country, even in remote areas.

Chauhan also contributed to establishing a roadmap for the National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCCL) and the early establishment of the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL), both critical pillars of India’s financial infrastructure.

In 2001, Chauhan moved on first to pursue an entrepreneurial journey and then to become Chief Information Officer of Reliance Infocomm in 2004 and Group CIO in 2005, where he led digital transformation across sectors such as petrochemicals, refining, and retail, while implementing enterprise-wide SAP systems to unify operations.

After nearly eight years in the corporate sector, he returned to financial markets by joining the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) as Deputy CEO in 2009.He went on to become CEO within three years, leading the transformation of Asia’s oldest stock exchange into a modern, technologically advanced, and profitable institution.

During his tenure, he introduced key initiatives such as the BSE StAR MF platform, which expanded mutual fund distribution, and also led the establishment of India International Exchange at GIFT City in 2017.

In a full-circle moment, Chauhan returned to NSE as Managing Director and CEO in 2017, focusing once again on strengthening technological infrastructure, handling large-scale market operations, and enhancing system resilience.

He has also played a key role in expanding financial literacy, with NSE conducting over 13,000 investor awareness programmes in fourteen languages between April 2024 and February 2025, reaching more than seven lakh participants.

Chauhan’s journey—from a young banking professional to a central figure in India’s market transformation—reflects resilience, innovation, and a deep commitment to building robust financial systems, making him one of the most influential figures in the evolution of India’s capital markets.