Ananth Narayan Height, Age, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Ananth Narayan

• Ananth Narayan was born in Kolkata, West Bengal.

• During his post-graduation studies at IIM, Lucknow, he won the Director’s Gold Medal for outstanding performance.

• In 1993, after completing a postgraduate diploma in Business Management, Narayan began his career in banking and finance and went on to work with Citibank. He worked there till 2005.

• In 2006, he joined Deutsche Bank as a managing director.

• In 2009, Ananth joined Standard Chartered Bank, where he held the position of Regional Head of Financial Markets until 2017.

• After serving more than two decades in banking and finance, Ananth Narayan shifted to academics and joined SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai, Maharashtra, as an Associate Professor of Finance.

• Throughout his academic career, he served on various advisory committees established by SEBI and the Reserve Bank of India, contributing to the regulation and policy-making in financial markets and derivatives.

• In 2018, Ananth joined Mirae Asset Financial Group in Mumbai as an additional director.

• In 2020, he served as the RBI-nominated additional director on the board of YES Bank.

• Ananth Narayan is also an independent director on the boards of several organisations, including SBI Capital Markets, National Stock Exchange (NSE) Clearing Ltd, NSE IFSC Gift City, Care Ratings Ltd, Clearcorp Dealing Systems, and Dvara Research.

• On October 10, 2022, Ananth Narayan took charge as a Whole-Time Member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), India’s primary stock market regulator.

• At SEBI, Ananth Narayan oversees critical areas such as the supervision of market intermediaries, alternative investment funds, surveillance, policy, and information technology.

• Recently, he came into the spotlight after banning Jane Street (a global trading powerhouse that operates worldwide with offices in New York, London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and other cities) from participating in Indian markets.

• In July 2025, Narayan signed SEBI’s significant interim order that prohibited Jane Street from operating in the Indian market and froze Rs 4,843 crore (approximately $570 million) in alleged illegal profits. The order accused the firm of employing high-frequency and expiry-day trading strategies that resulted in significant losses for small retail investors.

• As the only SEBI board member with relevant experience, Ananth Narayan was uniquely positioned to understand the complexities of Jane Street’s trades. Under his leadership, SEBI established a cross-functional team that tracked thousands of trades minute by minute to identify a pattern of price movements linked to Jane Street’s options exposure.

• In his Mumbai office, there is a whiteboard with a handwritten reminder: “First, do no harm.”

• Along with a core member of SEBI, Ananth Narayan has also been a member of various advisory committees constituted by SEBI and RBI.

• Ananth Narayan is a frequent speaker at industry forums. He discusses warnings about behavioural risks in investment and advocates for risk awareness, investor education, and stronger self-regulatory practices.
  

  Ananth Narayan at the bell ringing ceremony for World Investor Week, speaking at the National Stock Exchange’s (NSE’s)

• Narayan is a poker fan, particularly of Texas Hold’em (the most popular variant of the card game of poker). He sometimes gathers with old schoolmates to play it.