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.