Reliance Said to Tap McLaren’s Sethia as Jio Financial CEO

(Bloomberg) -- Reliance Industries Ltd. has tapped a top executive from McLaren Strategic Ventures as chief executive officer for its newly-created financial services unit that is preparing for a listing in India, according to people familiar with the matter.

Hitesh Sethia is due to join Jio Financial Services Ltd. as its CEO and managing director, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Sethia joined McLaren as its head of Europe in June last year and has been based in Frankfurt, according to his LinkedIn profile. He will move back to India to take up the new position at Reliance, the people said.

A representative for Reliance declined to comment, while Sethia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sethia’s appointment comes as billionaire Mukesh Ambani seeks to list Jio Financial Services in India after spinning it off. It appointed K. V. Kamath as non-executive chairman in November and has yet to provide a timeline for the initial public offering.

Jio Financial “will be a technology-led business, delivering financial products digitally by leveraging the nationwide omni-channel presence of Reliance’s consumer businesses,” Ambani said in a statement last year while announcing the spinoff. It is “uniquely positioned” to capture opportunities and bring “millions of Indians into formal financial institutions.”

Prior to joining McLaren, Sethia worked through the ranks at ICICI Bank Ltd. He started as a relationship manager in the corporate banking group at the Indian lender in Chennai in 2000, his LinkedIn profile shows. He had stints in Toronto, Frankfurt, London and Hong Kong and was head of the transaction banking business before he left the bank last year.

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