Prajakt Gawale has been elevated to Executive Vice President – Rural B2C at Bajaj Finance Ltd, marking a significant milestone in his leadership journey across consumer lending, risk, and large-scale rural business transformation. In this role, he leads the Rural B2C business with full P&L ownership, focusing on sustainable growth in Assets Under Management (AUM), profitability enhancement, and strategic expansion across India’s rural markets. He is also driving the integration of Generative AI across the ecosystem to enhance customer engagement, operational efficiency, and data-driven decision-making.
In his current journey at Bajaj Finance Ltd, he previously served as Chief Business Officer – Rural B2C, where he led a large-scale distribution network of 2000+ employees across 2400+ locations, managing full P&L responsibility for multiple lending products and driving strong topline and bottom-line performance. Prior to this, he was Chief Risk Officer – Consumer Lending, overseeing portfolio health and risk governance across multiple consumer lending segments. He also held leadership roles as Senior Business
Head – Center of Excellence and Business Head – Center of Excellence, where he focused on analytics, business intelligence, transformation, compliance, and process excellence.
Earlier in his career, Prajakt spent a significant tenure with GE Capital, where he held multiple senior leadership positions including Vice President & Lead – Process Excellence, Assistant Vice President, Zonal Manager (North & East), and Regional Manager. Across these roles, he led large teams, managed multi-city operations, strengthened portfolio health, improved compliance frameworks, drove process digitization, and implemented performance management systems across collections and lending businesses. His work included vendor management, risk controls, productivity enhancement, and large-scale operational transformation.
Across his career, he has consistently demonstrated strong expertise in business strategy, risk management, operational excellence, and technology-led transformation. His leadership has been instrumental in scaling rural lending businesses, strengthening governance frameworks, and building future-ready financial ecosystems powered by data, analytics, and emerging technologies.