Personal Profile

---

Ajay Vernekar is a UK‑aligned CIO with deep experience leading digital transformation, AI innovation, and cloud modernisation across major insurers and financial services organisations. He specialises in turning digital and AI strategy into execution at scale, balancing innovation with regulatory discipline, resilience, and cost efficiency. He is keen to partner with industry CIOs on co‑creating next‑generation digital transformation and AI strategies, shared innovation programmes, and advisory engagements that accelerate execution and deliver measurable business impact. As CIO of SBI Life Insurance — India’s largest private insurer — Ajay managed an optimised GBP 80+ million IT budget and delivered a three‑year 3SI strategy that supported more than 20% year‑on‑year growth. He deployed multilingual GenAI platforms reaching 50 million rural customers, built an enterprise‑wide AI analytics ecosystem, and achieved 99.5% digital adoption with significant efficiency gains in underwriting and claims. He previously led digital innovation at Aditya Birla Capital, replacing 85 legacy systems with cloud‑native, API‑driven platforms, and drove a major transformation at HDFC Life using AWS, SAP S/4HANA, TCS, and CRMNEXT. Earlier, he built Fullerton India’s IT estate from the ground up and established global operations centres for First Source Solutions. Ajay is recognised for secure‑by‑design leadership, strong industry partnerships, and delivering measurable business impact through modern, scalable, AI‑enabled platforms.