Arvind Kathpalia is the Group Head - Operations, Technology & Finance at Kotak Mahindra Bank. He is responsible for the overall Operations, Technology & Finance functions of the Bank. This includes operations management for retail (both assets and liabilities), corporate banking, treasury, Capital Markets and structured products, financial control as well as managing the entire technology function of the Bank.

During the last eighteen months, Arvind has led his Team to 15 Awards in IT both at the National as well as International level.

Under Arvind's leadership, his team has successfully executed and delivered more than 100 IT projects per annum, established world class processes, set up a robust and scalable technology platform, increased productivity by 15% year on year and reduced cost/transactions by more than 30%

Arvind brings with him 25 years of experience in banking, having held several senior management positions both in India and overseas with ANZ Grindlays and Standard Chartered Bank, in the area of Retail Banking, Corporate Banking, Finance, Strategic Planning & Technology.

Before joining Kotak Mahindra Bank, he was a key member of the Leadership Team involved in setting up the Shared Service Centre for Standard Chartered Bank in Chennai. Prior to that he was based in Melbourne with ANZ Bank as their Director- International Re-engineering responsible for driving performance improvement initiatives and process re-engineering across ANZ's entire International Network of 41 Countries ranging from the Pacific, Asia, Middle - East and Europe. He was also involved in developing the Consumer Banking Strategy for entering the highly competitive markets of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan in his role as Head Banking, International E Commerce at ANZ Bank.

In India, Arvind led the highly successful implementation of the Centralised Core Banking Systems (CBS) platform across the entire ANZ Grindlays network. Arvind brings with him vast experience in transformational initiatives including the sale of the Grindlays network in South Asia and Middle East, launch of the first Credit Card by a Bank in India, improving EVA of ANZ's International Network in 41 Countries. He has also led and managed major International cross border programs for transformation from Manual to automated systems, from decentralized to centrailsed systems as well as migration from Legacy centralized Core Banking systems to new core banking Systems. Arvind was also the Financial Controller for ANZ Grindlays in South Asia and has been in several line functions handling several key branches with complete P & L responsibility

Arvind is University Ranker in B.A. (Hons) - Economics from Delhi University and an MBA from FMS, Delhi with specialisation in Marketing & Finance. He is on the RBI Committee for Cheque Truncation and also a member of the IBA Committee on Securitisation as well as the IBA Legal and Operations Committee. Arvind has been a panelist and speaker at several National and International Conferences and has presented papers in several subjects including Retail Banking, Wealth Management, Outsourcing, Business Intelligence, Alignment of Technology with Business, Core Banking etc.

Arvind is married and has two teenage daughters. He loves traveling, sports and reading. His love for sports takes him around the world for watching key events like the Olympics, F1 racing, Grand Slam Tennis, Cricket and Rugby.