Meera Shankar
Indian Ambassador to the United States

Ms Meera Shankar was born on 9 October 1950. She joined the Indian Foreign Service in July 1973. She has held several important assignments during her career: she served as Director in the Prime Minister’s Office from 1985 to 1991; was posted to Washington DC and served as Minister (Commerce) from 1991 to 1995. Thereafter, she headed the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in New Delhi overseeing India's cultural diplomacy. Subsequently, in the Ministry of External Affairs, she headed two important divisions dealing with the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and relations with Nepal and Bhutan. After promotion to the rank of Additional Secretary in 2002, she held the responsibility for the United Nations and International Security. Her last assignment was as Ambassador of India to Germany from 1st December 2005 to 6th April 2009.

Ms Meera Shankar arrived in Washington DC on 26 April, 2009.She is married and has a daughter.

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Frank Wisner
Ambassador to India: 1994 to 1997, International Affairs Advisor, Patton Boggs LLP

Frank G. Wisner is International Affairs Advisor, at Patton Boggs, LLP. A career diplomat with the personal rank of Career Ambassador, he previously served as Ambassador to India from 1994 - 1997. Additionally, he held the positions of Ambassador to Zambia (1979 - 1982), Egypt (1986 - 1991), and the Philippines (1991 - 92). Mr. Wisner has served in a number of positions in the U.S. government, including Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (1993 - 1994), Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs (1992 - 93), Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs (1982 - 86), and Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department of State (1977). During the course of his career, Frank Wisner served in the Middle East and South and East Asia. Today Mr. Wisner is a member of the Boards of Directors of EOG Resources and Ethan Allen, as well as the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations. He is an advisor to Kissinger Associates.

A native of New York, Mr. Wisner was educated at Princeton University.

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Madhu Kannan
CEO, Bombay Stock Exchange

Mr. Kannan is the youngest chief executive in the history of Asia's oldest exchange. In May of 2009, Madhu Kannan was appointed the chief executive officer at the Bombay Stock Exchange( BSE). Prior to his appointment as CEO of BSE , he was a managing director (corporate strategy) with Bank of America-Merrill Lynch based in New York. Kannan also held various senior roles across businesses at the NYSE Euronext.

Kannan earned his undergraduate degree B.E. (Hons.) in Electrical and Electronics, M.Sc (Hons.), in Economics from BITS, Pilani, India and an MBA in Finance from Vanderbilt University, USA. He was nominated as a Young Global Leader in 2007 by the World Economic Forum (WEF), based in Geneva, Switzerland

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Arvind Panagariya
Professor of Economics & Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy, Columbia University and Former Chief Economist, Asian Development Bank

Arvind Panagariya is an Indian American economist and Bhagwati Professor of Economics at Columbia University and an ex-Chief Economist at the Asian Development Bank. In the past, he has been the Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and a Professor of Economics and Co-director, Center for International Economics, University of Maryland at College Park. He has also worked for the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and UNCTAD in various capacities. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from Princeton University.

Panagariya has written/edited ten books. His latest book, India: The Emerging Giant—was published in March 2008 by the Oxford University Press, New York and has been described as the ‘definitive book on the Indian economy’ by Fareed Zakaria and ‘a tour de horizon and a tour de force’ by Jagdish Bhagwati. His previous books include The Economics of Preferential Trade Agreements, 1996, AEI Press (with Jagdish Bhagwati) and Lectures on International Trade, 1998, MIT Press (with J. Bhagwati and T.N. Srinivasan).

Panagariya is currently an editor of the India Policy Forum, a journal modeled on the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity and jointly published by the Brookings Institution, Washington DC and the National Council on Applied Economic Research, New Delhi. His technical papers have appeared in the American Economic Review, Quarterly journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of International Economics, and International Economic Review while his policy papers have appeared in the Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, World Economy, Journal of International Affairs and Finance and Development.

Panagariya writes a monthly column in The Economic Times, India’s top financial daily. He has also written guest columns in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Hindu, India Today and Outlook. He has appeared on numerous national and foreign television channels.

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Hitendra Wadhwa
Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Business School

Professor Wadhwa has thirteen years of professional experience in strategy consulting, quantitative marketing and technology entrepreneurship. Professor Wadhwa teaches elective MBA and Executive-MBA courses on Strategy Consulting Skills, Personal Leadership, Pricing Strategies, Customer Centricity and Marketing Channels. He also consults to corporations and teaches executive seminars on these topics. Professor Wadhwa is the recipient of the 2007 Lear Award for distinguished service to students and the 2007 Most Engaging and Dynamic Professor Award by the Marketing Association of Columbia. Prior to Columbia, Professor Wadhwa was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he counseled senior executives on a range of strategy issues. He also founded and led Paramark, a technology company backed by $10 million in venture capital that developed the first real-time optimization platform for online marketing and was selected as a Top 100 Internet Technology company by Technologic Partners/Venture Wire in 2000 and 2001. Professor Wadhwa received his MBA and Ph.D. from the Sloan School of Management at MIT and his B.A. (Honors in Mathematics) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

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Suresh Sundaresan
Chase Manhattan Bank Professor of Economics and Finance, Columbia University

Professor Sundaresan has published in the areas of Treasury auctions, bidding, default risk, habit formation, term structure of interest rates, asset pricing, pension asset allocation, derivatives, fixed-income securities markets and risk management. His research has appeared in the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Business, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, European Economic Review, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Political Economy. He is an associate editor of Journal of Finance and Review of Derivatives Research. His current research focus is on default risk and how its affects asset pricing and sovereign debt securities. He has consulted for Morgan Stanley Asset Management and Ernst and Young. He has conducted training programs for leading investment banks including, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. He’s served on the Treasury Bond Markets Advisory Committee.

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