Whenever the story of India’s Exchange markets is talked about the world over, one name that is unmistakably uttered with a lot of awe and admiration is that of Jignesh Shah from India. Indeed, Jignesh Shah’s life may have seen an unfathomable blend of twists and turns but Shah remains the man who has shaped India’s markets not just in India but globally.
At a time when the Exchange space across segments was witnessing major upheaval with plunging volumes and low sentiments, Jignesh Shah gave them a fresh lease of life with his innovative zeal and entrepreneurial aggression hitherto unseen in the Indian exchange space. He began harnessing the benefits of risk management through hedging and trading leading to better price discovery.
Jignesh Shah has always believed in nurturing and promoting talent, creating jobs and sustainable livelihoods, generating value for stakeholders, creating institutions and, of course, contributing to the State Exchequer. And as such, he always looked at Exchanges as the gateways between India and the world. That is the reason his company, Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) set up world-class Exchanges in India like Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), MCX Stock Exchange (MCX-SX) and the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) as well as international Exchanges in Dubai, Singapore, Bahrain, Mauritius, and Botswana.
Jignesh Shah started FTIL (that is now known as 63 moons technologies limited) in 1995, at a very young age, with a great sense of pride and passion because the larger aim was to make Indian financial markets the most significant ones East of Suez. That was the unfolding of an inspiring “Make in India” story quite ahead of its time. His aim was to make Indian Exchanges globally competitive.
When Jignesh Shah began at his office in a 250 sq.ft. space in Mumbai’s Fort Area with about a dozen colleagues, he had no support from any of the big players in the markets. But he had a unique dream and immense energy to transform the dream into reality. Stocks and commodity markets have always excited Jignesh Shah and his vision has always been to marry technology and the financial markets. Even today, he is committed to innovation and willing to fight it out to support much-needed innovations in different market segments in India.
Jignesh Shah and his team of employees have worked incessantly for to come up with ODIN, a pioneering online trading platform. They were competing with major companies like TIBCO, IBM and TCS. Initially, ODIN was priced ten times lower than the competitors. Soon, FTIL began to cover nearly 90% of the market, and despite offering a lower price, began to show profit margins of 60%. FTIL, however, was not interested in being complacent and decided that it should pursue another innovation to create value.
Jignesh Shah realised that growth would be limited if the company solely depended on product license fee. That is when Shah came up with an audacious proposal to set up an online commodity exchange. Not only did he win the licence for the online commodity futures exchange, but also got it up and running in record nine months.
Soon, the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) became India’s premier national commodity derivatives exchange and Jignesh Shah fostered it to grow to become the second largest commodities exchange in the world in less than a decade. A comprehensive nationwide survey by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) revealed that MCX had created 10 lakh job opportunities in India.
ODIN went on to capture the second largest market share in Trading Terminal segment globally. ODIN has now become the lifeline of financial markets empowering India with 25 lakhs jobs and impacting 1 crore livelihoods.
Jignesh Shah soon came up with a series of more innovative exchanges like MCX-SX, Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX), Indian Energy Exchange Ltd. (IEX), National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL), Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) and Bourse Africa Limited (erstwhile Global Board of Trade) laying the foundation of his global empire, which, has been India’s biggest “Made in India” story so far.
Jignesh Shah is also identified as a philanthropist. His CSR activities like ‘Gramin Suvidha Kendra’ in association with India Post and ‘Pragati’ with Rotary International to empower underprivileged communities with education and training are a step forward towards a better and brighter tomorrow.
His contributions towards the society and the country have been recognized by innumerable honours and awards.
Jignesh Shah became the first Asian to be recognised as ‘Dominant Financial & Futures Industry Leaders’ by the Futures Industry Association (US). He shared this glory with dignitaries like the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Duncan Niederauer, CEO, NYSE Euronext; Robert Greifeld, CEO, NASDAQ OMX Group; Kevin Kometer, CIO, CME Group; Michael Kuhn, Tim Geithner, President, New York Federal Reserve Bank; Craig Donohue and Terry Duffy, ICE’s Jeffrey Sprecher, Executive Chairman, CME Group; Bernie Dan and BATS’ Joe Ratterman.
Jignesh Shah is considered among the ‘Top 20 Indians’ who can change the face of world business by CLSA and has been honoured with the
‘US-India Businessman of the Year 2005-06’ award. In 2007, he was chosen by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Geneva, as a ‘Young Global Leader’.
He has been featured among the ‘Top 30 Global Innovators in e-finance’ by the Institutional Investor in 2008 and was awarded the ‘Indian Express Innovation Award’ presented by the then President, late Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.
The tech innovator has now donned the role of a mentor to young entrepreneurs and looks forward to helping his country create 10 million such entrepreneur/innovators in the years to come who can put India on the world map in the era of Amazon and Alibaba, Google and Walmart.
He firmly believes that the business exhaustive technology expertise and the perseverance to success will transform our ventures into globally renowned robust and successful systems.