Rushad Abadan

Group General Counsel

Rushad leads our global Legal, Governance and Public Affairs function, as part of which he advises the abrdn plc Board and executive team on various strategic, operational, regulatory, people and risk issues.

In other current roles, Rushad serves as a Member of the Court of The University of Edinburgh and of its Audit & Risk Committee. He is also a non-executive director of Scottish Financial Enterprise, the representative body for financial services in Scotland. Previously, Rushad served as a non-executive director of HDFC Life Insurance and HDFC Asset Management, both leading, listed, Indian financial services companies.

Rushad joined our business in January 2016, at that time Standard Life plc. Before this, he was at NatWest Group (then The Royal Bank of Scotland Group) where he was Group Deputy General Counsel having previously served in senior roles since 2006.

Rushad arrived in the UK in 2002 to work in the Corporate Finance practice at Dundas & Wilson (now part of global law firm CMS). He began his career in India working in Mumbai in Arthur Andersen’s Tax and Foreign Investment practice and latterly in Andersen Legal’s M&A and Private Equity team.

Rushad holds a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com) from the University of Mumbai and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from Government Law College, Mumbai. He is a qualified solicitor in England and Wales, and India. Rushad is also a graduate of the Advanced Management Program from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.