MasterCard appoints industry veterans to oversee South Asia region

MasterCard Worldwide recently announced that Ajay Bhalla has been appointed executive vice president of South and South East Asia. In this role, Bhalla will have his responsibilities expanded beyond his current position as head of the South East Asia cluster, to include the South Asia markets of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Bhalla’s team in South Asia will be led by T.V. Seshadri, who has been with MasterCard since 1997. He moves from his current position as vice president and senior country manager, Singapore, to assume the role of vice president and country general manager for South Asia. In his new role, Seshadri will have responsibility for MasterCard’s business and operations in the South Asia cluster.

 Bhalla, a sixteen-year veteran of MasterCard will assume stewardship of the South Asia region from Sonny Sannon, who has announced his retirement. Seshadri succeeds Nitin Gupta who headed up the MasterCard South Asia operation for five years. Seshadri will be based in New Delhi. Both Seshadri and Bhalla will take up their posts on October 1, 2008.

“We are committed to appointing only the best talent to oversee our business in South Asia. Seshadri’s key direction and insight have contributed to the success of our operations in Singapore and South East Asia, markets which have close economic and business ties to South Asia. Seshadri’s experience in that part of the world will enable him to fully leverage our business synergies. This combined with his background in the banking industry in India, make him an ideal person to lead our team in the South Asia region,” said Bhalla.