About Piyush Gupta

Piyush Gupta BBM is an Indian-born Singaporean banker and the chief executive officer (CEO) of DBS Group, the largest bank in Southeast Asia by total assets. He is vice-chairman of the Institute of International Finance, and a board member of Enterprise Singapore. Piyush Gupta was one of three children, born in Meerut, India, to R.S. Gupta and Minnie Gupta. He attended St. Columba's High School and later earned a bachelor's degree in economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. After graduating, he joined the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad for a Post Graduate Diploma in Management. In 1982 and at the age of 22, Gupta started his career at Citibank India as a management trainee. He did several assignments with Citibank India, eventually being the chief-of-staff to the India head. He moved to Singapore in 1991 as the chief-of-staff to the Asia head, and was posted to Indonesia in 1998, as country manager. In 2000, he left Citigroup to start up a dot-com company, but closed his venture and re-joined Citigroup in 2001. Piyush Gupta was country officer in Malaysia from 2002 to 2007, where he helped built up Citigroup's branch network, before assuming the role of country officer in Singapore and the head of the Corporate and Investment Bank in ASEAN. In 2008, Piyush Gupta was appointed the CEO of Citibank in South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In 2009, he left Citigroup to join DBS Group as the CEO. As CEO, he received various business awards, and has been credited with growing DBS to become a leading Asian financial services group. Early on in 2013, Gupta also realized that DBS needed to start thinking like big tech. "Our frame of reference had to be Amazon or Alibaba. We had to stop thinking about what other banks will do. We had to start thinking about what big tech will do." In 2018, Piyush Gupta addressed an audience of top business leaders at the Asia Leaders Series in Zürich, Switzerland, stating that "Few people have come to the recognition that Asia is no longer the factory of the world, it is the marketplace of the world." He then elaborated, "Anybody who wants to allocate capital and is not looking at riding on the Asian growth story over the next 10-15-20 years is really missing a big opportunity." In 2020, he led DBS to launch two new exchanges, and undertake two acquisitions. Gupta has come out with the importance of future blockchain driven Web 3.0 world with the cautious conclusion at a panel discussion titled, Global Trends and Web 3.0 at the Singapore FinTech Festival in 2021. In 2024, Piyush Gupta announced on August 7 that he would step down from his role on March 28, 2025. Tan Su Shan was appointed deputy CEO with immediate effect and will succeed him. Piyush Gupta Vice-Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) Executive Committee. In addition, he is a member of Singapore’s Advisory Council on the Ethical Use of AI and Data, and Bretton Woods Committee - Advisory Council. He sits on the boards of Singapore’s National Research Foundation, and the Singapore’s Council for Board Diversity. Piyush is a term trustee of the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA). Previously, he has been a member of the Singapore Emerging Stronger Taskforce, aimed at defining Singapore’s future in a post-Covid world, the UN Secretary General’s Task Force on Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals, and the McKinsey Advisory Council.