Patel will succeed D.J. Pandian as Vice President. As the Vice President, he used to oversee all sovereign and non-sovereign lending in South Asia, the Pacific Islands and South East Asia.

“AIIB’s Board of Directors has appointed Urjit Patel to the position of Vice President for Investment Operations Region 1—South Asia, the Pacific Islands and South East Asia— succeeding D.J. Pandian,” said the AIIB statement.

Patel, a former Governor of the RBI, also served as former Chair of the Governing Body of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, a think tank on fiscal policy and tax matters. He was also Executive Director and member of the Management Committee of the Infrastructure Development Finance Company Ltd.

With a PhD in Economics from Yale University, he has extensive experience in both infrastructure and energy sectors.

After serving as the RBI Governor for over two years, Patel resigned in December, 2018, citing “personal reasons”.

Commenting on the appointment, AIIB President Jin Liqun said: “His extensive experience at the national and international levels across various public and private sectors will help the bank better embrace its growth phase and will support AIIB’s vision of investing in ‘infrastructure for tomorrow’.”

Patel’s predecessor, Pandian, was AIIB’s first Chief Investment Officer (2016-2019) and had been with the bank since the commencement of its operations in 2016. More than $17.8 billion financings proposed under his leadership have been approved by AIIB’s Board of Directors during the past six years.

President Jin said: “D.J.’s contributions to the bank, particularly his role in building the investment operations team, have been crucial to our operations.” Pandian’s experience in infrastructure development helped AIIB build capacity in end-to-end project identification to implementation, which was critical particularly in its initial years, he said.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a multilateral development bank with an aim to finance the infrastructure with sustainability at its core. It began operations in Beijing in January 2016 and have since grown to 105 approved members globally.

Other Vice Presidents of AIIB are Danny Alexander (VP for policy strategy), Konstantin Limitovskiy (VP for investment operations – Region 2), Ludger Schuknecht (VP and Corporate Secretary), Luky Eko Wuryanto (VP and Chief Administration Officer).