Raghuram Rajan is the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His research spans banking, corporate finance, monetary policy, political economy and economic development. He combines this academic work with experience leading major financial and policy institutions.
Rajan served as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016 and as Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2006. He was also Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Bank for International Settlements from 2015 to 2016. These roles connect his research interests with the practical tensions involved in financial stability, policy and development.
His books examine how economic systems create both opportunity and vulnerability. With Luigi Zingales, he wrote Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists. Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy won the Financial Times business book award in 2010. The Third Pillar considers the role of communities alongside markets and the state, arguing that economic analysis needs to recognise what can be lost when that relationship becomes unbalanced.
With Rohit Lamba, he wrote Breaking the Mold, examining India’s possible development paths. Their argument gives particular attention to services, human capability, innovation and democratic institutions, rather than assuming that India must reproduce another country’s route through industrialisation. This is a defined contribution to debate about the country’s future, not a claim that its outcomes are predetermined.
For executive audiences, Rajan is especially relevant when a brief concerns the foundations of growth, the institutions behind a market or the choices shaping India’s economy. His perspective invites leaders to connect commercial opportunity with finance, capability and social context. It supports a more demanding discussion than either unqualified optimism or a list of obstacles, with room to examine the assumptions behind alternative development strategies.
