The only Indian to feature in Fortune’s ‘Top People in Business’ for 2014, this globe-trotting salesman can sell ice to Eskimos and Diwali sales schemes in New York with equal ease. Â
Scrubbing toilets and breading chicken to get a sense of what running a restaurant was like, he is now at the helm of one of the world’s largest corporations.
Childhood
Ajaypal Singh Banga was born in 1960 in Pune. His mother was the first member of her family to earn a college degree; his father was an officer in the Indian army, and the family moved often.Â
Banga graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Delhi University and MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Career
Banga began his career as a management trainee with Nestle in 1981. He spent the next 13 years working in jobs spanning sales, marketing, and general management.Â
He then joined PepsiCo becoming its marketing director. He was instrumental in the launch of Pizza Hut and KFC in India.
He spent the next thirteen years of his life in Citigroup. He was part of the bank’s senior management in the US and Europe, Middle East, Africa regions before becoming chairman and chief executive officer of Citi’s international global consumer group in 2005.
He was responsible for Citi’s brand and marketing work across the entire company. Under him, the retail banking in North America grew 50 % in net income from just under $2 billion in 2001 to $3 billion in 2004.
His success rate was noted by many multi-national companies, and MasterCard was the first to tap Banga and rope him in to their company. In 2010, he took over as the CEO of MasterCard.
He also serves on the board of Kraft Foods.
Personal Life
Banga is married and has two daughters. He loves fine wine, the New York Mets, Lady Gaga, Elvis Presley and Sikh spirituals, in no particular order.