Rajeev Kakar


Rajeev Kakar, an experienced banker and a serial business founder and entrepreneur, currently serves as an Independent Non-Executive Director at Commercial International Bank, Egypt; Gulf International Bank, Bahrain and KSA; Eurobank Ergasias SA, Greece and Satin Creditcare Network, India. He also serves, since 2009, as a member of the Global Advisory Board of the prestigious University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, and also as a Member of the Industry Advisory Board of the SP Jain School of Global Management since 2011. As a Board Member at Eurobank, Rajeev also serves as the Chairman of the Board Remuneration Committee and Vice Chairman of the Board Risk Committee.
With over three decades of experience in the banking industry, Rajeev has worked and lived as both a Fullerton Financial Holdings and  Citibank international expatriate officer in several global markets, especially in the high-growth, emerging CEEMEA and ASIA-PACIFIC countries, based out of India, Egypt, Turkey, UAE and Singapore. In these roles, Rajeev has operated large banks and financial institutions, successfully realigned banking businesses, executed multi-country business strategies, led acquisitions and transformations, and has been a founder of multiple green-field financial services businesses and institutions. He continues to also actively serve on several prominent boards.

Professional life

In recent years, between January 2006 till August 2018, Rajeev was one of the five Global Management Founders and a Founder Global Management Board Member of Fullerton Financial Holdings, a 100% subsidiary of Temasek Holdings, both headquartered in Singapore. In this global Fullerton role, he served as the Executive Vice-President and Regional CEO for the CEEMEA region for the Global Fullerton group, and concurrently also headed Fullerton's Consumer Banking businesses globally. In 2008, Kakar also simultaneously founded Dunia Finance in the UAE, a strategic joint venture financial institution between Fullerton Financial Holdings and Mubadala Investment Company, and served as its Founder Managing Director & CEO until July 2018. Prior to his role at Fullerton, between 1987 - 2006, Kakar worked at Citibank in various senior roles for almost two decades across several different countries between 1987-2006. In his last Citibank role, Kakar served as the Regional CEO & Division Executive for Citi's then fast growing Turkey, Middle East & Africa region, until January 2006.
Between September 2003 and January 2006, he was the Regional Head & CEO for Citibank, managing Citi’s Turkey, Middle East and Africa region region, based out of Dubai, UAE. Earlier, between 2002 - 2003, Rajeev was Citibank’s CEO for the Turkey & Egypt cluster, based out of Istanbul, and led an important strategic business turnaround for Citibank's business in Turkey. Prior to that, in 2000, he was the CEO for Citibank in Egypt, based out of Cairo,where he launched Citibank’s consumer bank, which was the first full function Consumer Banking offering in the Egyptian market. This was recognized for fastest break-even in Citigroup’s history.
Between 1996 - 2000, in India, Rajeev was the Business CEO for Citibank’s Auto Finance business and, in this role based out of New Delhi, he also founded Citicorp Maruti Finance Limited, a new green-field joint venture captive finance company between Citigroup & the Car manufacturer Suzuki as strategic investors. He additionally ran this Non Bank Finance Company as the Founder Managing Director and CEO, till 2000, acquiring the highest share of the market at that time.  Prior to this role, between 1993-1996, based first out of Mumbai and then Chennai, Rajeev was the Marketing Director for Citibank India for both its domestic businesses as well as Citibank India’s Non-Resident Indian Banking Business operating across the world out of over 20 centers, covering NRI customers in 145 countries. Between 1987 and 1993, Rajeev held various other senior roles at Citibank in India.

Honors/awards

Kakar completed a Masters of Business Administration in Finance and Marketing from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. He also received his Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
Kakar was born and raised in Delhi, India, where he attended St. Columba's School, Delhi from 1970 to 1980.

Board Positions and Affiliations

Based in Dubai, Rajeev is married to Nidhi, with whom he has two daughters.