Private Equity Professionals

TPG hires ex-Standard Chartered CEO as senior advisor

Ajay Kanwal, former regional chief of ASEAN and South Asia at Standard Chartered, will advise TPG’s Asian investment strategies in consumer and financial services.

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Global private equity firm TPG has named Ajay Kanwal, a former regional chief executive officer, ASEAN and South Asia at Standard Chartered, as senior advisor, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Kanwal joins Dilip Thomas, former CEO of Hyderabad-based Care Hospitals, as well as Donald Kaberuka, former president of the African Development Bank Group, as senior advisors to the firm.

Before joining TPG, Kanwal spent over two decades at Standard Chartered in various roles, most recently as regional CEO for ASEAN and South Asia. Kanwal also served as CEO for North Asia from 2014 to 2015, as well as head of Taiwan from 2012 to 2014. Earlier in his career, he worked at the bank's consumer banking division across various locations across the region, according to his LinkedIn.

Kanwal left the bank in November last year after 24 years, for failing to disclose past personal investments, only a few months after chief executive Bill Winters, said he would take a “zero-tolerance” policy on compliance issues after discovering transgressions concerning some employees' outside business interests, close financial dealings with co-workers and excessive expenses.

“The bank rightly sets very high internal standards on disclosures for all staff. After careful deliberation I felt that some of my internal disclosures about my historical personal investments in businesses outside the bank did not meet these very high standards,” Kanwal said in a statement at that time.

Kanwal's investments had not affected clients or the economic interest of the bank, Standard Chartered said.

Along with Kanwal, the bank also appointed Naveen Chopra, former chief operating officer of Vodafone India, as senior advisor.

TPG is in the process of raising its latest pan-Asian vehicle with a target of more than $4 billion. In Asia, the firm currently manages approximately $6 billion in assets from its offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Mumbai, and Singapore.

TPG's $2 billion impact fund, the Rise Fund, recently invested $50 million in Hyderabad-based company Dolda Dairy .