Ajay Banga (born 10 November 1959) is an Indian-American business executive who has been president of the World Bank Group since 2 June 2023, the first person born in India to hold the post. He was chief executive of Mastercard from 2010 to 2020, a period in which its revenue and share price multiplied. He received the Padma Shri in 2016.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Ajaypal Singh Banga |
| Born | 10 November 1959, Khadki, Pune, Maharashtra, India |
| Age | 66 |
| Nationality | American (born Indian) |
| Post | President, World Bank Group (since 2023) |
| Earlier post | President and CEO, Mastercard (2010–2020) |
| Education | Hyderabad Public School; St. Stephen’s College, Delhi (B.A. Economics); IIM Ahmedabad (PGDM) |
| Spouse | Ritu Banga |
| Children | 2 daughters |
| Honour | Padma Shri (2016) |
Early Life
Banga was born in the cantonment of Khadki into a Sikh family from Jalandhar. His father, Harbhajan Singh Banga, retired as a lieutenant general in the Indian Army, and the family moved across India with his postings. His elder brother, M. S. “Vindi” Banga, became a senior executive at Unilever.
Career
He joined Nestlé India in 1981 and spent thirteen years in sales, marketing and management. He then worked for PepsiCo, helping to launch its fast-food chains in India as the economy opened.
He joined Citigroup in 1996, held posts in Europe, the Middle East and the United States and rose to head its Asia-Pacific business. He also led its work on microfinance. He became an American citizen in 2007.
He joined Mastercard as president in 2009 and became chief executive in July 2010. He declared that the company’s real competitor was cash, invested in digital and mobile payments and data services, and set a goal of bringing hundreds of millions of people without bank accounts into the financial system. Revenue roughly tripled in his time. He was executive chairman in 2021 and then vice-chairman of the investment firm General Atlantic.
President Joe Biden nominated him in February 2023, and the bank’s board elected him unopposed. He has rewritten its mission as ending poverty “on a livable planet”, sped up loan approvals, stretched its balance sheet to lend more and set targets for connecting 300 million Africans to electricity and for creating jobs for young people.
Personal Life
He is married to Ritu Banga, and they have two daughters. He was a co-chair of the Partnership for Central America and has served on the boards of Dow and Kraft Foods.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Ajay Banga born?
Ajay Banga was born on 10 November 1959 in Khadki, Pune, Maharashtra, India and is 66 years old.
Featured image: Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank, in New York during the United Nations General Assembly, September 2026. Photo by Xuthoria, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
