NSDL Appoints Ankit Sharma as Executive Director for Five-Year Term — September 21, 2026

National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) has appointed Ankit Sharma as Executive Director for a five-year term, effective September 21, 2026. Sharma will take charge of Vertical 2, which encompasses regulatory affairs, statutory compliance, risk management, and investor grievances.

The appointment follows earlier regulatory clearances from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) granted in May 2026, which approved the onboarding of two executive directors to head critical leadership verticals at the depository infrastructure institution. Alongside Sharma’s portfolio over compliance and risk, Subhash Kelkar was cleared to head Vertical 1, managing critical operations and mission-critical market infrastructure.

Extensive Industry Experience

Sharma joins NSDL with over three decades of professional experience spanning regulatory policy, compliance administration, market surveillance, and risk governance across premier financial institutions.

Key milestones of his career include:

• Serving as the Chief Regulatory Officer for Listing and Investor Compliance at the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE).
• Gaining foundational experience with primary regulatory and central banking institutions, including stints at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and SEBI.
• Holding senior roles across market intermediaries and financial institutions, including ICICI Securities, Deutsche Bank, and UBS.

Sharma holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics, an undergraduate degree from University Maharaja College, and an MBA from the R.A. Poddar Institute of Management, University of Rajasthan.

Significance for Capital Market Infrastructure

As a Market Infrastructure Institution (MII), NSDL functions as a core backbone of India's electronic securities custody and settlement ecosystem. In recent years, SEBI has increasingly mandated fortified corporate governance frameworks, heightened risk mitigation architectures, and streamlined investor protection mechanisms across depositories and exchanges.

In his new role at NSDL, Sharma will oversee regulatory compliance, risk assessment protocols, and investor grievance redressal mechanisms, including interactions with platforms like SEBI's SCORES. His appointment comes at a crucial juncture as India's retail and institutional participation in equities and debt instruments continues to scale, placing increased scrutiny on operational resilience and regulatory integrity.

Tags: NSDL SEBI NSE Capital Markets Depository Services