Dr. Ajit Ranade
Director
Dr. Ajit Ranade is presently the Vice-Chancellor of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune.
He was till last year, Group Executive President and Chief Economist with the multinational Aditya Birla Group. Also, he was a member of the National Executive Committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and of the Economic Policy Council of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He was Chair of the Research Advisory Panel of the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance, and member of the Governing Council of Centre for Advanced Financial Research and Learning (CAFRAL) of the RBI. He represents India on the Board of Governors of Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) based in Jakarta, Indonesia. He chairs the Academic Council of Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics.
He was a member of the Capital Account Convertibility Committee and the FEMA Review committee of the Reserve Bank of India. He was a member of the Governing Council of the Banking Codes and Supervisory Board of India. He has served as a member of the Board of Governors of IIT, Bombay.
He is an engineer (IIT Bombay) and MBA (IIM Ahmedabad) and received a PhD in Economics from Brown University, USA. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Bombay in 2009, Scholar of the Year Award from Wadia Trust in 2010, Dr. Ramchandra Parnerkar Economics Award in 2012, and the Aditya Birla Leader of Leaders Award in 2015.
He is a co-founder and Trustee of the Association for Democratic Reforms, an NGO working in the area of electoral and political reforms.
He writes regularly in newspapers on economic, social and political topics.