Biography of Ajaypal Banga (His childhood, education, career, personal life, achievements, what can one learn from his life)

Ajaypal Singh Banga is known as the former CEO and President of MasterCard which is an American thriving global payment and technology company. His father was in Army so that he spent his babyhood in several places in India, his career started after completing MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, in 1981 He began working at Nestle and had given his services for 13 years, after that he left Nestle and joined Citigroup & PepsiCo. He servers many prestigious organizations in several honourable positions, some of them are mentioned below:- 

1. Co-chairman of Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics & The Economic Club of New York.

2. Co-chairman of American India Foundation,

3. Member of Council on Foreign Relations,  

4. Member of US India CEO Forum and also severs as a member of International Business Council at World Economic Forum.

He joined MasterCard, a payment and technology company in July 2010 and served until December 31, 2020, as the president and CEO of the company. He was also appointed as a member of the advisory committee for trade policy and negotiation by President Barack Obama himself. In 2016, He was also awarded Padma Shri which is the fourth highest civilian award by the govt. Of India. Ajay Banga is an executive chairman of the board of directors of Mastercard.

Childhood and early life 

Ajaypal Banga was born in Khadki, a small town near Pune, Maharashtra to a Sikh family in 1960. His mother was Jaswant Kaur and his father was Harbhajan Singh Banga, his father served in the Indian army as an officer.

Jalandhar is the native place of the Banga family but due to the nature of his father's profession he had to travel a lot and he spent most of his young age in army bases in many parts of India, and due to this there was not a particular school where he studied, he was transferred in various schools starting from Secunderabad, Jalandhar, Delhi, Hyderabad and eventually he completed his schooling in Shimla. 

He completed his primary education from Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet, and after his schooling, he took admission in the renowned, St. Stephen's College, and completed his graduation with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. For pursuing his PGP which is equivalent to MBA, he went to the most prestigious College in India, "IIM( Indian Institute of Management)", Ahmedabad. He also has an elder brother named Manvinder Singh Banga, who is a businessman.

His business career began with Nestlé in 1981, where he served for at least consecutive 13 years and given his best to it. He has experienced working on several designations in different work fields like marketing, sales, and general management. He also joined PepsiCo and had been employed there for 2 years, in those 2 years he took the company in the direction of launching its fast-food franchises in India during the 1990s.

Before, working at MasterCard, he used to work at Citigroup Asia Pacific on the designation of the (CEO) chief executive officer. he has worked in several positions in senior management during his long journey working he has worked in the US, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa, and Europe. He leads the company towards the microfinancing world. In 2005, he was nominated for the head of Citigroup's international consumer-banking and finance businesses.

Late he joined MasterCard, and became the company’s president and CEO in July 2010, replacing Robert W. Selander who was former CEO of MasterCard. US President Barack Obama himself formally appointed him as a member of the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations in February 2015. 

He is also a chairperson of the board of directors of the American India Foundation. He has also worked as a member of Enhancing National Cybersecurity of President Obama’s Commission. Banga is also a member of the U.S.-India CEO Forum. 

In the last five years, Ajaypal has worked for the National Urban League and the New York Hall of Science, the boards of trustees of Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., and worked as a director of the Council for Economic Education. He was named "The Fourth Most Powerful Indian" in the world‘ by the Economic Times of India.  

Banga has been an orator at several prestigious platforms like FinTech conferences. And on May 22, 2014, he was also a speaker at the NYU Stern 2014 Graduate Convocation, he addressed the importance of diversity in driving innovation and leadership. He also presented himself at, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. 

Ajaypal is married to Ritu and this lovely couple has two pretty daughters named Jojo and Aditi. Aditi is married to Jonathan Ross Schwartz.

What Can We Learn from His Life? 

Always try to find solutions: - Somedays seem hard and sometimes the situation becomes unfavourable. Ajaypal says that he has learned from his seniors to find solutions eventually. If someone is dedicated enough and ready to put effort he/she will take help of unconventional ways which might seem a little wild but eventually, he/she will find the solution. This is the attribute of a hard worker.

A leader is always a student first, it's necessary to keep learning. Open your eyes look around, listen to others and learn from them. If you fail then learn from it, if you succeed then learn from it. 

he always said that one must balance professional life and personal life. No matter how much busy you are with your profession eventually you will have to give time to the people who care for you. Being on such a prestigious and higher designation he always maintained a Work-Life balance.

Ajaypal has been invited on many shows and platforms to address people because he is capable of doing so. Communication is needed everywhere. In professional and non-professional life we must know how to and in what manner we should convey our thoughts and imagination and perception effectively and precisely. We should learn this art from him.