Nomura on March 29 announced the appointment of Prabhat Awasthi as the new head of India with effect from April 1. He is currently head of equities, India.

Awasthi is based in Mumbai and will be responsible for running Nomura’s India franchise spanning fixed income, equities and investment banking. Vikas Sharma, current head of India, has been elevated to head of Asia, ex-Japan, also from April 1 following his exceptional work leading and building Nomura’s India business over the past 10 years. Awasthi will report to Sharma.

Awasthi has about two decades of experience in the Indian equity markets, and assumed his current role at Nomura in 2011. He joined Nomura in October 2008 as head of equity research, India, from Lehman Brothers, where he held the same position.

Prior to that, he was a founding member of the Brics Securities business acquired by Lehman in 2007, and had stints at J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Crisil where he began his career in 1994.

Photo courtesy of Nomura.