Mumbai: Rajnikant Patel has resigned as managing director and chief executive officer of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the bourse said in a press release.

BSE said the resignation has been due to personal reasons and BSE has accepted the resignation.

Mahesh L Soneji, chief operating officer of the exchange, will look after the interests of the exchange till a new appointment is made, the release said.

A few weeks ago, BSE board members Jamshyd Godrej and S M Dutta had also resigned.

The BSE governing board had appointed Rajnikant Patel, as executive director and chief executive officer of the stock exchange for a period of five years. Prior to his appointment Patel was the chief operating officer (COO) and member of the governing board of BSE.

Rajnikant Patel joined the BSE as director - surveillance and inspection in March 2001, and was elevated to the position of COO in May 2003 and was also given the additional responsibility as CFO.

Since joining the exchange he had taken various initiatives to achieve operational efficiency and restore the confidence of the regulators, investors and members.

He spearheaded various initiatives and measures for the surveillance department, which led to the department being awarded the ISO 9001:2000, making BSE the first exchange in Asia and second in the world to obtain such a certification.

An accomplished banker, Patel had a long stint with the Reserve Bank of India and had also worked with BNP Paribas. He started his career with Bank of Maharashtra and subsequently joined State Bank of Saurashtra.

A guest faculty at various institutions like the RBI's Bankers Training College, College of Agricultural Banking, ICSI, ICAI, etc, Patel is director on the boards of Central Depositories Services (India) Ltd. (CDSL) and BoI Shareholding Ltd. (BOISL).