Ajay Seth appointed as IRDAI Chairman after steering India’s economic affairs and finance ministry reforms
Ajay Seth, the incumbent Chairman of India’s Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI), is a retired IAS officer of the 1987 batch from the Karnataka cadre; he has served in this capacity since September 2025. Prior to his tenure at the IRDAI, he held pivotal positions within India’s Ministry of Finance, serving as both the Finance Secretary and the Secretary of Economic Affairs. He was born on June 30, 1965, in India. He earned a B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Roorkee and an MBA degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. Within the Government of Karnataka, Ajay Seth served in various key and diverse roles, notably as the Principal Secretary for Infrastructure Development, Urban Development, and the Planning Department. Between 2000 and 2004, he served as a Deputy Secretary in the Department of Expenditure and the Department of Economic Affairs within the Union Ministry of Finance. Subsequently, from 2004 to 2008, he served as an Advisor to the Executive Director at the Asian Development Bank. Later, within the Government of Karnataka, he served as the Principal Secretary for the Department of Health and Family Welfare and as the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes. His tenure as the Commissioner of the Commercial Taxes Department is recognized for ushering in numerous reforms in commercial tax administration, for which he was honored with the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration in 2013. In July 2018, he was appointed as the Managing Director of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), a position he held until April 2021. In April 2021, the Government of India appointed Ajay Seth as the Secretary of Economic Affairs. This appointment marked his return to the Central Government after a hiatus of 13 years. In March 2025, the government appointed Ajay Seth as India’s new Finance Secretary. This appointment took place after Tuhin Kanta Pandey stepped down from the post of Finance Secretary to assume the chairmanship of SEBI. After stepping down from both his previous positions, Ajay Seth assumed the office of Chairperson of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority for a three-year term, effective September 1, 2025.