Neelkanth Mishra likely to be named Chairperson of UIDAI, Nilesh Shah & Prof Mausam board members

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is likely to appoint Neelkanth Mishra as its next Chairperson, multiple people directly aware of the matter told CNBC-TV18. In addition, Nilesh Shah, and Professor Mausam are also likely to be named as part-time members of the board of UIDAI.

Neelkanth Mishra, an engineer by education and an economist by vocation, is a distinguished figure in the financial and economic sectors. A Credit Suisse India veteran, Mishra recently assumed the position of Chief Economist and Head of Global Research at Axis Bank in May 2023.

Prior to that, Neelkanth Mishra was associated with Credit Suisse India for two decades, where he served as Co-head of APAC Strategy, India Equity Strategy, and as India Head of Research.

Another eminent addition to the UIDAI board is Nilesh Shah. Shah is currently the Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company and also serves as a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC).

Shah is a Chartered Accountant, who has over 25 years of experience in capital markets. He previously held leadership roles at Axis Capital, ICICI Prudential AMC, and Franklin Templeton among others.

Professor Mausam is the founding head of the School of Artificial Intelligence at IIT Delhi, and brings a strong academic background and expertise in cutting-edge technologies to the UIDAI. Prof Mausam is the founding head of Yardi School of Artificial Intelligence at IIT Delhi. He is also an affiliate professor at University of Washington, Seattle.

With over 20 years of research experience in artificial intelligence, he has, over time, contributed to many research areas such as large scale information extraction over the Web, AI approaches for optimising crowdsourced workflows, and probabilistic planning algorithms, as per his page on the IIT Delhi website.

With the recent appointment of Amit Agarwal as the CEO of UIDAI, these three latest appointments effectively fill all vacant positions on the UIDAI board, solidifying the leadership team responsible for overseeing Aadhaar enrolment, authentication, and the management of the Aadhaar life cycle.