National Finance Symposium '11 : Report

IIFT concluded its 6th National Finance Symposium on 6th September 2011 at Mumbai. The Symposium was a huge success with participation from eminent people from the industry and media.

Check out the Final Symposium Report @ the following link:
http://www.esnips.com/doc/7a190231-9dda-4272-a886-ec29c2339714/Symposium-Report-Final

Dr. D Subbarao, Governor RBI- Chief Guest, National Finance Symposium 2011- Inaugural Session

Dr. Duvvuri Subbarao assumed office as the twenty-second Governor of the Reserve Bank of India on 5 September 2008. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Subbarao served as Finance Secretary to the Government of India from April 2007 to September 2008 and as Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council from March 2005 to March 2007.

As a member of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Dr Subbarao has been a career civil servant. Over the years of 1976-98, he worked in various positions in the state Government of Andhra Pradesh and in Government of India.

Dr Subbarao was a Lead Economist in the World Bank (1999 - 2004), where his responsibilities involved advising developing countries on public finance management. He also task managed a flagship study on decentralisation across major East Asian countries which was acknowledged as innovative policy work.

Dr Subbarao received BSc (Hons) in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and MSc in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He also has an MS in Economics from the Ohio State University (1978) and was a Humphrey Fellow studying public finance at MIT during 1982-83. He earned his PhD in Economics from Andhra University for his thesis on “Fiscal Reforms at the Sub-national Level” (1998).

Dr.  Subbarao came into the Reserve Bank just a week before the global financial crisis erupted in full in mid-September 2008. He led the Reserve Bank’s effort to mitigate the impact of the crisis on India and was actively engaged in the G-20 effort to coordinate an international response to the crisis. The challenges ahead for the Reserve Bank, as he sees them, are to bring inflation down, support the growth momentum of the Indian economy, take financial sector reforms forward and deepen financial inclusion.

Dr. Subbarao maintains a strong commitment to academic pursuits, and has written and lectured extensively on issues in public finance, decentralization and political economy of reforms at national and international fora.

 Dr. Subbarao has consented to be the Chief Guest for the 6th IIFT National Finance Symposium to be held at Mumbai.

Mr. Sonjoy Chatterjee - Special Address, National Finance Symposium 2011- Inaugural Session

Mr. Sonjoy Chatterjee is currently the chairman and co-chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs India. He is also chair of the India Operating Committee. He joined Goldman Sachs as a partner in May 2010.

Mr. Sonjoy joined the firm after a 16-year career at ICICI Bank, where he most recently served as an executive director on the Board of Directors with responsibility for Corporate & Investment Banking, Financial Institutions Group, Project Finance, Government Banking and ICICI Bank’s International Banking business. He joined ICICI Bank’s predecessor, eICICI, in 1994 in the bank’s project finance office in Kolkata. He later held various senior management roles, including head of the Strategic Group and the founding managing director and chief executive officer of ICICI Bank UK, the bank’s first overseas subsidiary and the largest Indian bank outside of India. Mr. Sonjoy worked closely with key clients, first as senior vice president of the Major Clients Group and then as head of the Global Client Group comprising the top 50 Indian corporate accounts. In 1999, he led the team responsible for listing ICICI as the first Indian company on the NYSE.

Mr. Sonjoy is on the Board of Trustees of the International Business Leaders Forum, London, a social initiative group comprising global business leaders.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a master’s degree in business administration from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB).

Mr. Sonjoy will be delivering the Special Address during the Inaugural Session of our Symposium.

Dr. Atindra Sen - Panelist, National Finance Symposium 2011 - Session III

Dr. Atindra Sen is currently the Director General of Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

He was educated at Loyola School, Jamshedpur, St Stephen’s College, Delhi and at the Delhi School of Economics from where he obtained a Masters degree in Economics. He earned a second Masters degree as well as a PhD in Economics from Boston University. In addition, he was a SPURS Fellow in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993.

Dr. Sen began his career as a banker and served briefly in the Bank of India as an officer before moving to the State Bank of India.  In 1978, he resigned from the State Bank of India to join the Indian Administrative Service. Dr Sen was allotted to the state of Madhya Pradesh cadre in the IAS and served in various administrative positions in the state and the Government of India. He took voluntary retirement from the IAS in 2008 and was at the time visiting professor of Economics in Miami University, Oxford, USA. He joined the Bombay Chamber as its first Director General in June 2009.

Dr. Sen has held several positions in the Government of Madhya Pradesh, including Additional Secretary, Urban Administration; Secretary Information Technology and Finance; Managing Director, MP State Cooperative Oilseeds Growers Federation and Principal Secretary, General Administration Department. While serving in the Government of India, Dr. Sen has held positions in the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, Nuclear Power Corporation, Mumbai, Registrar, Delhi University, Delhi and Member Secretary, Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi.

              

Dr. Sen has taught in various US colleges and universities such as University of Massachusetts, Boston University, Stonehill College and Earlham College. He has also been a Visiting Professor in Seoul University, South Korea. Dr Sen’s areas of interest include applied microeconomics, economic development and poverty studies, and public policy.

In addition, he is interested in issues of elementary education and civil service reforms. He has been a member of the Joint Review Missions of the District Primary Education Programme and its successor programme, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. He also undertakes volunteer work in primary education and is currently the President of Vikramshila Education Resources Society, a NGO based in Kolkata (www.vikramshila.org) which is active in the fields of primary education and teacher training. He was the Member Secretary of an official committee of the Ministry of Human Resource Development on Operations and Regulation of Foreign Universities in India (CNR Rao Committee) and Chairman of a committee to advice the same Ministry on GATS in relation to educational services.

Dr. Sen is a frequent speaker in workshops and seminarson civl service reforms, conomics and elemenary education. Dr. Sen is married and has two daughters. He has travelle extensively in India and abroad but calls Mumbai his home for many yeas now.

Dr. Atindra Sen will be sharing his views during Session III - Panel Discussion on “Inclusive Growth: A Utopian dream or a reality?” of the Symposium.

Mr. R Laxman- Speaker, National Finance Symposium 2011- Session II

Mr. R Laxman is currently the Director of Private Equity division at Kotak. He has been with Kotak Private Equity team since 2009 bringing with him more than 17 years of varied experience within the Kotak Group. Prior to his current assignment, Mr. Laxman was with Kotak Investment Banking specialising in Mergers and Acquisition and Private Equity. During his 10 year stint at the Investment Bank, Mr. Laxman has advised several large business groups in India in the M&A and PE space. He has also successfully led cross border acquisitions for Indian and global clients in geographies including Europe and China. He had a special focus on the automobile and general engineering sectors at the Investment Bank.

Prior to the Investment Banking stint, Mr. Laxman spent 2 years in the Car Finance business of Kotak and was the Head of the Western Region. Mr. Laxman also spent 5 years in the Corporate Lease and Hire Purchase Business of Kotak.

Mr. Laxman is a post graduate from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, University of Bombay with a specialisation in Finance. He is also a Cost and Works Accountant from The Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India.

Mr. R Laxman will be sharing his perspectives during Session II - “Changing pattern of investments - Domestic and Foreign” of the Symposium.

Mr. U. Venkataraman- Speaker, National Finance Symposium 2011- Session I

Mr. U. Venkataraman is presently Executive Director, MCX Stock Exchange.

MCX Stock Exchange, India’s new exchange offers at present trading in Currency Futures in four Currency Pairs and a market leader in Currency Futures. Mr. U. Venkataraman has more than 20 years of experience in the Financial Market. His expertise and experience cover a broad business and Product Spectrum – Asset Liability Management, Foreign Exchange, Fixed Income and Derivatives.

Prior to joining MCX Stock Exchange, Mr. Venkataraman was the Head of Treasury at IDBI Bank in Mumbai, presently the 7th largest Bank in the Indian Financial Market, where he was in charge of the entire Treasury operations of the Bank.

Mr. Venkataraman has attended several training programmes in India and abroad on professional subjects such as Foreign Exchange Bourse, Market Risks & Derivatives, International Payments & Trade Finance among others. He has also conducted customer seminars on Currency Risk and Interest Rate Risk Management.

He has been a visiting faculty at a number of professional institutions such as Institute of Chartered Accountants of India; Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India, Institute of Company Secretaries of India as well as in the Special Programmes conducted by Trade Bodies and Associations like ASSOCHAM, CII, FICCI & IMC.

Mr. U. Venkataraman will be addressing the Symposium on Broad-basing capital market for Financial Inclusion through the Banking channel during Session I - “Banking in India Undergoing Metamorphosis”.

Mr. Dharmakirti Joshi - Panelist, National Finance Symposium 2011 - Session III

Mr. Dharmakirti Joshi is the Director of the CRISIL Centre of Economic Research and Chief economist at CRISIL Ltd.  He currently also oversees the Asia Pacific Economic Research for S&P which is done out of CRISIL. He has extensive experience in macroeconomic analysis, medium term assessment of Indian economy and demand forecasting as well as in public finance issues.

With 22 years experience in economic research and consultancy, his career began in National Council of Applied Economic Research where he spent 11 years. He then moved on to Central Electricity Regulatory Commission as Deputy Chief Economist. He has been a part of the faculty that trains senior regulatory officials from the South Asia region. He is member of the Working Group of Savings for the 12th Five Year Plan.  He is also a member of the industry monitoring group of Reserve bank of India. He is the co-chairman of Economic Affairs Committee of Bombay Chamber of Commerce and member of Economic Policy Group of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Advisory Committee of Economic Research Foundation of Indian Merchant Chamber. He often writes for leading newspapers and expresses his views on the economy in the electronic media.

Mr. Joshi holds a masters degree in economics. He has attended program on Macroeconomic Policy and Management at Harvard University and was a visiting scholar to Economic Research Unit of University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Dharmakirti Joshi will be sharing his thoughts during Session III - Panel Discussion on “Inclusive Growth: A Utopian dream or a reality?” of the Symposium.