Sundararaman Ramamurthy, 64, managing director and chief executive officer of BSE, Asia’s oldest stock exchange, is widely recognized for transforming this over 150-year-old institution. From the second floor of Phiroze Jeejeebhoy Towers, overlooking the Arabian Sea and the Mumbai Port Trust, Ramamurthy exudes calm authority. He confidently states that the proposed National Stock Exchange (NSE) listing is a ‘special milestone’ for him personally, given his long tenure at NSE. Since assuming leadership at BSE in 2023, he has driven the exchange’s market capitalization from ₹23,000 crore to an impressive ₹1.63 trillion as of Friday. He highlights the strategic steps BSE has implemented since he took over.
Edited excerpts:
Since you joined in January 2023, BSE has delivered a 14x wealth creation in about three years. What were the biggest internal and external factors that enabled this rapid turnaround?
The turnaround began with a simple principle: listen to the customer and address genuine market needs. At that stage, there was no ready ecosystem or momentum working in our favour. We engaged directly with brokers, institutions, traders and other ecosystem participants to gain a deep understanding of their expectations and pain points. Before finalizing our product relaunch strategy, I personally met over 350 brokers over a few months. That ‘voice of customer’ approach became central to our strategy and decision-making.
Our efforts to build stronger regulatory engagement and to advocate for areas that require a level playing field also played an important role.
Equally important was rebuilding the organization internally. At one point, more than 350 positions were unfilled, and the workforce profile needed rejuvenation. We undertook a comprehensive organizational transformation by filling key vacancies, bringing in experienced C-suite professionals, rationalizing grades and compensation structures, and improving workplace infrastructure and accountability.
Combined with investments in technology, cost rationalization and operational discipline, BSE’s growth gained momentum. The relaunch of the derivatives segment created a powerful flywheel effect, contributing significantly to growth across multiple business verticals and reinforcing BSE’s position in India’s evolving capital market landscape.
Can you share a few specific changes in operations, governance or team mindset that had the outsized impact?
Cost discipline as a culture was showcased right at the beginning through the rationalization of around ₹100 crore in annual expenditure, which, inter alia, included liquidity enhancement and technology incentive schemes that delivered limited business value and yielded no meaningful liquidity.
At the same time, we shifted towards a far more customer-centric approach, where strategic decisions were increasingly guided by direct market feedback and stronger engagement with ecosystem participants. Internally, greater ownership, accountability and faster execution were embedded across teams.
Technology transformation became another key pillar of this journey. We built co-location (colo) infrastructure and significantly enhanced derivatives trading capacity, from just 10 crore orders per day to 1,800 crore orders per day, with a peak processing capability of 22 lakh orders per second. We also introduced judicious AI-led improvements and automation initiatives where required, with around 33 projects completed and 14 currently in progress.
Employee-grade and pay-scale rationalization, the revamp of promotion policies, completion of the performance management process by 31 March each year, with letters handed over on 1 April, and regular town halls to familiarize employees with the company’s direction were some of the key employee-centric initiatives undertaken.
The relaunch of Sensex options in 2023 was a major inflection point...
The starting point of BSE’s transformation was listening closely to brokers and market participants through an extensive ‘voice of customer’ outreach exercise. Based on these insights, we launched a product that the market had apparently long been waiting for—one that filled a genuine gap, complemented the most popular benchmark product with a correlation of nearly 99%, and offered unique advantages. This differentiated positioning helped the product quickly gain traction, build liquidity and achieve meaningful market share.
Equally important was the broader shift within the organization towards a far more customer-centric approach, with a stronger focus on responsiveness, execution and market engagement. Together, these initiatives helped BSE strengthen its position and create renewed momentum within the Indian capital market ecosystem.
What are the top 2–3 strategic growth priorities for 2026 and beyond?
Overall, diversification of revenue streams is an important business strategy for us.
Improving our market share in the cash segment remains a key focus for BSE. While regulatory initiatives such as the common contract note (CCN) have helped create a more level playing field, certain structural challenges remain, particularly around best-price execution for investors. We understand that trading members are facing some challenges in the wider implementation of smart order routing (SOR) across the brokerage ecosystem. Our view is that investors should be exchange-agnostic and price-sensitive, not the other way around. Trading members need to provide such a system as they owe it to their investors. Such a change can further strengthen market efficiency and investor outcomes.
In the area of equity derivatives, we continue to expand our product suite with innovative products such as the BSE Focused IT Index. We have also received approvals for products like Mid-Cap index and Sensex Next 30. These offerings provide investors with additional avenues for portfolio diversification and risk hedging, especially through long-dated contracts that enhance risk management capabilities.
Enhancing mutual fund penetration across the country, listing more quality SMEs (small and medium enterprises) on our platform, and expanding our index business are other key focus areas in this regard.
How is BSE balancing growth in listings (mainboard and SME) while maintaining quality and investor protection?
Maintaining quality and investor protection remains fundamental to the long-term growth and credibility of India’s capital markets. Therefore, the question of balancing one against the other does not arise.
Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) has played a pivotal role in developing a robust regulatory framework that enables quality companies to efficiently raise growth capital in the market while also ensuring strong governance and investor protection standards. BSE continues to work closely with the regulator to support these larger objectives and strengthen the overall market ecosystem.
BSE has also actively complemented Sebi’s efforts through both digital and on-ground outreach initiatives. Today, we have built a strong digital presence with over 45 lakh followers across social media platforms. Offline, we conduct nearly 12,000–15,000 investor awareness programmes annually, reaching approximately 8–10 lakh investors across the country.
How are you leveraging BSE’s heritage while driving digital transformation and innovation to stay relevant for the next generation of investors and issuers?
Technology investments continue to play a critical role in improving speed, resilience, scalability and operational efficiency across the exchange ecosystem. We are also actively exploring the use of AI to enhance processes and efficiency, while under Sebi’s guidance, evaluating emerging areas such as the tokenization of securities and next-generation market infrastructure initiatives.
At the same time, we are expanding products and services in line with evolving investor and market needs. The recent launch of the StAR NPS platform is one such example, aimed at supporting the growing retirement planning requirements in the country.
NSE is IPO-bound. What steps are you taking to brace yourself for a renewed thrust in competition?
For me, it is a special milestone, having been part of the initial set of employees at NSE and having spent a significant part of my career with the organization. From BSE’s perspective, our focus remains on innovating and strengthening our products, services and market infrastructure to support India’s rapidly growing capital market ecosystem.