The COO, who founded the business 16 years ago, is returning after four years of working in other wealth management organisations.

360 ONE, an India-based wealth and asset management house, has appointed financial industry figure Pankaj Fitkariwala as chief operating officer.

Fitkariwala, who is a founding member of the business, is returning after a four-year stint outside of the firm, during which he was the COO of Avendus Wealth and Avendus Finance. Most recently, he co-founded Wealth Fintech Goalteller, an India-registered investment advisor and distributor of financial products.

Other roles in a career lasting more than 20 years have included tenures at Kotak Mahindra Group, ABN AMRO, and Barclays.

“Pankaj played a pivotal role in his previous 12-year tenure at 360 ONE, and was instrumental in establishing and scaling our operations, technology, risk, and other critical functions. His extensive experience and innovative mindset will be invaluable as we embark on new strategic initiatives to drive our growth,” Karan Bhagat, founder and chief executive, said.

360 ONE is the investment and financial advisor to 7,200 high net worth and ultra-high net worth families, collectively holding about $56.3 billion of assets. It is headquartered in Mumbai and operates from 25 locations in India.

The story also speaks to India's continued growth as a wealth management market. For example, as reported this week, Eton Solutions, which provides cloud-based services for family offices, launched a reporting platform, AtlasFive, in India. Last week, it also announced that the launch client is Catamaran, the family office of Infosys’s founder, Narayana Murthy. 

India is also trying to compete against international financial and wealth centres such as Singapore and Dubai. As an example, Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) is starting operations at the new GIFT City financial hub. HSBC, which is planing to offer dollar-denominated products to non-residents from this location, is also planning to offer dollar-denominated products to non-residents from GIFT City – Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, to give its full name.

Also, read this story from early June outlining wealth management reactions to the Indian national election results this year.