The United States (US) President Joe Biden has nominated corporate leader Ajay Banga, vice chairman of General Atlantic and a former president and chief executive of MasterCard, to be the next president of the World Bank. The nomination comes at a time when the Bank is in the middle of an ambitious internal transformation.
Subject to confirmation by the Bank’s executive board, a formality given that the US, as the largest shareholder of the Bank, has historically got to nominate the president, Banga will be the first person of Indian-origin to head the World Bank.
In a statement on Wednesday, Biden said that Banga was “uniquely equipped” to lead the Bank at this critical moment. “He has spent more than three decades building and managing successful, global companies that create jobs and bring investment to developing economies, and guiding organizations through periods of fundamental change. He has a proven track record managing people and systems, and partnering with global leaders around the world to deliver results.”
Biden noted that Banga also had critical experience mobilising “public-private resources to tackle the most urgent challenges of our time, including climate change”. “Raised in India, Ajay has a unique perspective on the opportunities and challenges facing developing countries and how the World Bank can deliver on its ambitious agenda to reduce poverty and expand prosperity.”
Banga will take over the Bank when the institution is the in middle of designing an evolution roadmap to reorient its “mission, operation and resources” to better address contemporary challenges, particularly the climate crisis. His private sector background is expected to help at a time when raising finances to help countries deal with the climate transition is set to become one of the Bank’s top mandates. Banga’s commitment to fighting the climate crisis was reflected in his past business roles, and is a marked contrast from David Malpass, a Donald Trump nominee who resigned as the Bank’s president earlier this month.
Banga is deeply rooted in India. Born in Pune in 1959 in an Indian military family — his father, Harbhajan Singh Banga retired as a lieutenant general in the army — Banga studied at the St. Stephens’ College in Delhi University and the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. He began his career at Nestle in 1981 and then joined PepsiCo in India and then moved to the US in 2000, working for the Citigroup in New York. His brother, MS Banga, is a respected corporate leader in his own right who served as chairman and CEO of Hindustan Lever.
Banga has also been closely involved in deepening the India-US relationship as a former chairman of the US-India Business Council, a founding trustee of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum and chairman emeritus of the American India Foundation. The Government of India awarded him a Padma Shri in 2016. Banga has closely engaged with India’s top political leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In a biographical note along with Biden’s announcement, the White House said that Banga had led Mastercard through a “strategic, technological and cultural transformation”. Banga serves as an honorary chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, after having been chairman from 2020 to 2022. He is also the chairman of Exor, an independent director at Temasek, an advisor to General Atlantic’s climate-focused fund, BeyondNetZero, and has previously served on the Boards of the American Red Cross, Kraft Foods and Dow Inc.
Banga has also been closely associated with the world of American public policy. In 2015, the then President Barack Obama nominated him to serve as a member of the President’s advisory committee for trade policy and negotiations; Banga also served on Obama’s commission on enhancing national cybersecurity. In the current administration, he has worked closely with vice president Kamala Harris as the co-chair for partnership with Central America and serves as a member of the Trilateral Commission, which works to deepen collaboration between the US, Western Europe and Japan.
