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UHA appoints Zachary Dominitz to lead India operations
MUMBAI: International architecture and design firm UHA has named Zachary Dominitz as senior director and head of India, signalling a fresh phase of global expansion powered by sustainability, design innovation and sharper business strategy.
The London-based studio, now nearing its fifteenth year, has spent more than a decade shaping skylines across India. With new work emerging in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, the appointment of Dominitz marks a turning point for the firm as it strengthens its global footprint.
Founder and managing partner Jonas Upton-Hansen said Dominitz’s arrival blends business sense with creative empathy. He noted that the firm’s designers will now be able to deepen their focus on architecture while Zachary takes charge of growth and team development.
Dominitz brings a global résumé spanning the US, UK, Australia and Argentina. With an MBA from London Business School and a background in brand-building at Siegel+Gale, sustainability leadership at TerraCycle and previous roles spanning communications, agency leadership and even the Clinton White House, he enters UHA with a blend of strategic and creative firepower.
Having previously worked with UHA on its long-term roadmap, Dominitz said the firm’s human-centred design language and tight-knit team made the opportunity an ideal match. Co-founder Ricardo Mateu added that ongoing work across Argentina, Mexico, Oman, Taiwan and Thailand made this the right moment to streamline systems and anchor leadership in Mumbai.
The leadership shift accompanies a broader restructuring that empowers regional directors, expands UHA’s landscape and interior design capabilities and moves talent across offices to support the firm’s multi-nodal working model.
UHA currently has more than sixty active projects across three continents, spanning Mediterranean villa communities, landmark towers in New Delhi and Mumbai, a prize-winning masterplan in Moscow and Mexico’s first Leed-certified residential development. Its roots in India run deep, with long-standing projects in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Bengaluru and NCR.
Dominitz said India’s energy lies as much in its people as in its rapidly evolving market. He described the country’s design community as confident, ambitious and ready to shape new urban stories. Joining that momentum, he said, felt less like an arrival and more like stepping into a narrative already in motion.
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Reserve Bank of India cancels Paytm Payments Bank licence
Central bank cites compliance failures; curbs tighten as wind-up looms
MUMBAI: India’s banking watchdog delivered its sharpest blow yet to Paytm Payments Bank, cancelling its licence and effectively ending its ability to operate as a bank under the law.
The Reserve Bank of India said the entity can no longer conduct banking business under the Banking Regulation Act, citing concerns that its affairs were not being run in the interest of depositors or the public and that it had failed to meet licence conditions.
The move escalates a crackdown that has been building for months. The bank had already been barred from onboarding new customers since March 11, 2022, and later faced restrictions on deposits, credit and wallet top-ups. In January 2024, the central bank ordered it to stop accepting fresh deposits, pointing to persistent non-compliance, including lapses in customer due diligence, use of funds and technology systems.
Operationally, the bank is now on a tight leash. It may process withdrawals of existing deposits and facilitate loan referrals through banking correspondents, but it cannot take fresh deposits.
The central bank said it would apply to the high court to wind up the bank.
Paytm sought to ringfence the fallout. In a regulatory filing, it said the licence cancellation applies to Paytm Payments Bank Limited, a separate entity, and should not be attributed to One 97 Communications. It added that there is no exposure or material business arrangement with the bank and that it operates independently, without Paytm’s board or management involvement.
“As informed earlier, Paytm (One 97 Communications Limited) and its services, which have been operating without interruption, will continue to operate uninterrupted. These include the Paytm app, Paytm UPI, Paytm Gold and all other services offered by its subsidiaries and associated companies,” the company said.
The distinction may reassure users of the app ecosystem, but the regulator’s verdict is unequivocal. After years of warnings, caps and curbs, the payments bank experiment at Paytm is being shut down—decisively, and with little room left to manoeuvre.
