Kotak Mahindra Bank CTO Bhavnish Lathia resigns, Nilesh Chaudhari steps in | People

Kotak Mahindra Bank on Monday announced that its Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Bhavnish Lathia has resigned due to personal reasons. The bank said Lathia’s resignation was accepted and her last day of work was February 9.

In her resignation letter, Lathia said: “Due to personal reasons, I need to return to the US. As a result, I will resign as CTO of Kotak Mahindra Bank from today.”

Lathia was appointed as CTO in March 2025, following the resignation of Milind Nagnur, who resigned from the post of Chief Operating Officer (COO) and CTO effective February 15, 2025.

The bank has appointed Nilesh Chaudhari as its new CTO and appointed him as senior executive staff. Chaudhari has nearly 29 years of experience in global and Indian financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Citigroup and IDFC First Bank.

Chaudhari, CIO – Global Payments at Barclays; head of retail banking technology and head of Asia Banking Technology at JPMorgan; CTO responsible for corporate and wholesale banking at IDFC First Bank.

His expertise spans payments, core banking, treasury, cash management, digital platforms, data, lending and large-scale technology transformation in more than 20 countries.

An engineer by training, Chaudhari holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Poona and leads complex technology modernization programmes. At Kotak Mahindra Bank, he plays a key role in developing strategic technology initiatives across wholesale banking, commercial banking, treasury, GIFT City operations, assurance and enablement functions.

Separately, the bank also announced the appointment of Aravamudham Narayanan (Vijay Narayanan) as the bank’s president (innovation and artificial intelligence) and senior executive staff.

Disclosure: Entities controlled by the Kotak family have a significant stake in Business Standard Pvt Ltd.