Board of Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics

P.D. Singh

CEO, Standard Chartered Bank, India & South Asia and Former Advisory Board Member, MDAE P. D. Singh is the CEO for India & South Asia at Standard Chartered Bank. With nearly three decades of banking experience, he previously served as CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase Bank India and played a key role in building its corporate banking franchise. Before J.P. Morgan, he spent around a decade in leadership roles at HSBC. An engineer with two MBA degrees, P. D. Singh brings deep expertise in corporate and commercial banking and is known for driving cross-border growth and strategic client solutions.

Dharmakirti Joshi

Chief Economist - CRISIL Mr. Joshi holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Economics from Punjab University. As a visiting scholar at University of Pennsylvania, he attended Harvard University's program on Macroeconomic Policy and Management. A primary spokesperson for CRISIL on macroeconomic issues, he leads CRISIL's economic research agenda. He has extensive experience in macroeconomic analysis and medium-term economic forecasting. Joshi has spent 30 years in economic research and consultancy. CRISIL was his first employer after 11 years at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). During his tenure at NCAER, Joshi worked on macroeconomic forecasting using computable general equilibrium and econometric models, macroeconomic reforms and fiscal policy.

Roopank Chaudhary

Partner and Chief Commercial Officer, Human Capital Solutions, India and South Asia at Aon He is a Partner and Chief Commercial Officer, Human Capital Solutions, India and South Asia at Aon. He is also part of the Regional Leadership team for McLagan, and the APAC head for the Insurance Practice. He has assisted many multinational and local financial services organisations with their human capital challenges in India, APAC and in the Middle East region. Roopank has authored various articles and shared perspectives on management issues in leading Indian media publications and is a regular speaker in several annual seminars and HR forums. He has over 15 years of industry experience across consulting and banking, having formerly worked at HSBC. An MBA in marketing and finance, he also holds a graduate degree in economics and a postgraduate degree in journalism.

Dr. Ajit Ranade

Chairman of the Academic Board Dr. Ajit Ranade – Chairman Academic Board, MDAE. He has a PhD in Economics from Brown University, B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He had been Professor ICRIER, New Delhi and Assistant Professor at IGIDR, Mumbai. He also served as Chief Economist at ABN AMRO Bank. He was Government of India’s nominee as Independent Director of Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd., from September 22, 2007 to April 1, 2010. He has served on various committees of the Reserve Bank of India, including the committee for Fuller Capital Account Convertibility and the committee to review FEMA for Individuals. He writes at First Post, Business Standard, IBNLive, The Economist Times.

Dr. Tushar Poddar

Macro Strategist - Wellington Management Managing Director, Global Macro Strategist, Member of Wellington Fund Management's Emerging Market Debt Team, Tushar Poddar is based in London. He conducts research on external debt markets, local debt markets, and foreign exchange markets, particularly for India, other emerging Asian economies, Middle Eastern economies, and Latin America. He served as chief India economist and senior regional economist at Goldman Sachs (2006 - 2016) prior to joining MDAE in 2016. Dr. Poddar worked at the International Monetary Fund for five years covering Emerging Markets and providing policy advice. The London School of Economics and Political Science has awarded him a PhD and an MSc in Economics.

Dr. Mangal Goswami

Executive Director- South East Asian Central Bank (SEACEN) Dr. Mangal Goswami - is currently the Executive Director of South East Asian Central Banks (SEACEN). He has also worked as Desk economist for various IMF member countries. Before joining the IMF in November 2000, Mangal was an Economist at ABN AMRO Bank in their Global Trading Unit in Singapore during the Asian Financial Crisis. He has a PhD in International and Monetary Economics from Kansas State University and a B.A. from Coe College in the U.S.

Dr. Niranjan Rajadhyaksha

Executive Director - Research and Strategy, Artha India Research Advisors Dr. Niranjan Rajadhyaksha is the Executive Director – Research & Strategy at Artha India Research Advisors. His work focuses on macroeconomics, political economy, and economic history. Previously, he served as Executive Editor at Mint, where he led the opinion section and wrote the award-winning Café Economics column. He is a recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism (2012) and the B.R. Shenoy Award for Economics (2017). Dr. Rajadhyaksha also serves on the board of trustees of the Centre for Civil Society and was part of the advisory committee for the fifth volume of the official History of the Reserve Bank of India.