Who is V Anantha Nageswaran, new chief economic advisor? IIM-A grad, academic, PM’s ex-advisor

Nageswaran, who has taught at various B-schools in India and Singapore, takes charge days before the tabling of the Economic Survey and the Union Budget.

V. Anantha Nageswaran is the new Chief Economic Advisor | Photo: Twitter | @FinMinIndia

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government Friday appointed Dr V. Anantha Nageswaran as the new Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) in the Ministry of Finance.

“He has assumed charge today,” the government said in a statement.

Nageswaran, a former member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC), takes charge days before the tabling of the Economic Survey on 31 January and the Union Budget on 1 February. The Economic Survey has been drafted by a team led by Principal Economic Advisor Sanjeev Sanyal.

Distinguished economist

Nageswaran is a distinguished visiting professor of economics at Krea University’s IFMR Graduate School of Business. Prior to this, he has also taught at various business schools in India and Singapore. He holds a post-graduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a doctoral degree from the University of Massachusetts in Empirical Behaviour of Exchange Rates.

Apart from the PMEAC, where he served as a part-time member between 2019 and 2021, Nageswaran’s advisory roles include being an honorary senior advisor to the International Financial Services Authority of India in Gujarat. He was also an advisor to Dvara Research on Financial System Design.

According to his LinkedIn profile, he also advises the Indicus Foundation on Financial Inclusion. He serves on the advisory boards of TVS Capital and the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship.

His corporate career spans over 17 years from 1994 to 2011, where he was a currency economist at the Union Bank of Switzerland, head of research and investment consulting in Credit Suisse Private Banking in Asia, and head of Asia research and global chief investment officer at Bank Julius Baer.

He is also an independent director on the boards of Sundaram Fasteners, TVS Tyres and Delphi-TVS.

CEA post vacant since December

The position of the chief economic advisor in the finance ministry was lying vacant since Dr Krishnamurthy Subramanian demitted office on 17 December and returned to academia. The government had invited applications for the position of CEA in October.
Subramanian was appointed CEA in December 2018, succeeding Arvind Subramanian.

The CEA, who holds the rank of a secretary in the government, reports directly to the finance minister.

According to reports, the government had shortlisted Nageswaran, Sanyal, Pami Dua, former member of the Monetary Policy Committee, and Poonam Gupta, director general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research for the post.

“He (Nageswaran) was always seen as an underdog,” a senior government official told ThePrint.

Nageswaran also joins the government at a time when consumption, which has taken a severe hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is yet to recover, and unemployment continues to hurt economic growth.

(Edited by Neha Mahajan)