Adani Green Energy has appointed Ashish Khanna as chief executive officer, effective April 1, and said current CEO Amit Singh will transition to another unspecified leadership role within the Adani Group.

Ashish Khanna has been CEO of the international energy business of Indian conglomerate Adani Group since May 2023. He has more than three decades of experience in the renewable and infrastructure sector, including previous roles as CEO of Tata Power and Renewable Energy and CEO of Tata Power Solar Systems. He also worked at Bharat Petroleum and engineering and construction conglomerate Punj Lloyd previously.

The change of leadership comes less than two months after Adani Group chair Gautam Adani and seven other defendants, including his nephew and executive director of Adani Green Energy, Sagar Adani, were indicted in a federal court in New York in relation to allegedly agreeing to pay more than US$260m in bribes to Indian officials to obtain power supply contracts in a scheme that began "in or about 2020", according to the indictment. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has also brought a civil suit that alleges the company raised more than US$175m from US investors from a US$750m bond in September 2021 while the alleged bribery scheme was in place.

The group has denied the charges as "baseless". 

Adani Green Energy had to pull a US$600m public bond deal on November 21 on news of the indictments and is now considering launching a US$500m private placement of US dollar bonds in Reg D format instead.

Market participants do not expect the change of CEO to modify the overall strategy of the company as Khanna is an internal appointee.

Source: IFR