It is hard not to be impressed with the top man at the soon-to-be-listed National Stock Exchange. Ashish Chauhan’s simplicity and calm demeanour is completely at odds with at least 50 lakh transactions that the NSE processes every second as the world’s fastest bourse.

Chauhan, whose spiritual side could have led him to become a monk, is now piloting India’s most aggressive capitalistic engine to perhaps the largest public offer during his second stint at the NSE as its Chief Executive Officer.

The 58-year-old also has a unique record of getting four companies listed in the past decade.

Also read: NSE, India’s financial heartbeat, files for jumbo public listing; sparks global interest

A Mechanical Engineer by training, Chauhan was among the founding team of Mumbai-based NSE when it was set up by the government in 1993. He created a fully computerised platform where screen-based orders were matched anonymously via a nationwide satellite network in a country where a basic landline phone was a luxury.

"Ashish has always seen a stock exchange first as critical economic infrastructure and only then as a business," says Dhirendra Kumar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Value Research. "His views on how an exchange should be run come through very sharply. He is a true technologist by instinct, and you can see that in everything the NSE has built."

Chauhan, who hails from a small village near Ahmedabad, notes that it took the NSE just 11 months to equal its larger rival BSE’s daily turnover. And by 18 months the NSE was 1.5 times the size of the older exchange that was set up in 1875.

Dinshaw Irani, CEO of Helios Capital India, relates an interesting anecdote.
 
As a broker Mumbai-based Irani used to pitch Indian equities to potential clients in East Asia in early 1990s when stocks were physically traded in a large hall at exchanges. Settlements were delayed and pricing was cloudy. Most clients declined to buy, fearing higher transaction costs, he added.

"And then in 1996, I met a client in Hong Kong, and he had a live NSE terminal in front of him, giving up-to-the second quotes of Indian shares,” Irani told BTTV. "I was so happy that things had changed in India for the better, and it was the advent of the NSE that actually got foreigners to invest on Dalal Street: thanks to transparency and predictable settlements.”

PROBLEM SOLVER

Removing minor hurdles and yet staying with the big picture is what Chauhan specialises in.

Chauhan has been the government’s 'go to man' in resolving sticky issues with the NSE being no exception. The bourse’s public offer was stuck in a series of regulatory and legal quagmires over the past decade and it took exceptional skills to navigate bureaucratic minefields.

However, Chauhan’s biggest test lies ahead. The NSE is India’s flagship exchange by any measure – on top line, trades, market share, margins and profit – and the Offer For Sale of 14.89 crore shares will raise about Rs 30,000 crore for selling shareholders.
 
Chauhan has also helmed the listings of two NSE-backed companies – the National Securities Depository and Protean eGov Technologies since he took charge in 2022. Prior to his second stint at NSE, Chauhan spent 13 years at the BSE, getting the exchange listed, as also its partly-owned unit – the Central Depository Services!
 
The combined market value of these four stands around Rs 2.61 lakh crore but is overshadowed by debt-free NSE’s conservative valuation of Rs 5 lakh crore, making it the 10th most valuable Indian company by market capitalisation.

Apart from also designing indices such as the benchmark 50-share Nifty and creating the electronic platform of derivatives trading, Chauhan has led a chequered and interesting corporate profile.
 
A life-long vegetarian and a practitioner of Vipassana, Chauhan was also the CEO of Mumbai Indians, the most successful T20 Cricket franchise, owned by Reliance Industries. Chauhan has also set up the IT backend of the telecom venture of Reliance.
 
Cricket, Yoga and reading scriptures remain abiding passions for Chauhan, as also creating and getting large organizations listed!