Former TCS chief Rajesh Gopinathan joins NSE board amid strategic data centre shift

Gopinathan has joined as a public interest director with effect from 23 April for three years.

Rajesh Gopinathan, former managing director and chief executive of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and presently professor at IIT Bombay, has been appointed to the board of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Mint reported on May 27.

Gopinathan becomes the second former head of a technology company to join the NSE board after Veneet Nayar, who had served as the vice-chairman and chief executive of HCL Technologies. Nayar was appointed as a non-independent director in September 2021.

Gopinathan's appointment comes at a pivotal time for the NSE as it plans to relocate its data centre as colocation becomes the dominant mode of trading after the pandemic. A significant increase in derivatives and cash volumes drives this shift.

"His over 25 years of experience in the global technology industry, a part of which was spent heading one of the world's largest tech services firms (TCS), will come in handy for the exchange, whose top priorities include shifting its data center within a year to a year-and-a-half," reported Mint, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Gopinathan has joined the NSE board as a public interest director, effective from April 23, 2024, for a three-year term.

The reappointment of Nayar, who joined the NSE board on September 20, 2021, was approved by NSE shareholders at the 31 annual general meeting last August. The move awaits the approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), as per the NSE's corporate governance report for the fourth quarter of FY24, released last month.