Sanjeev Sanyal appointed as Principal Economic Adviser: All you need to know about him

Sanjeev Sanyal, former global strategist and Managing Director of Deutshe Bank, was on Friday appointed as Principal Economic Adviser.

The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved Sanyal's appointment for three years on contract basis, an order issued by Personnel Minister said. Sanyal will work under the Department of Economic Affairs. 

He was Chief Economist and Director of Global Markets Research at Deutsche Bank in Singapore until 2008. One of Asia's leading financial economists, he has spent the last decade analyzing the region's rapidly growing economies. 

Adding more feathers to his cap, Sanyal is an Advisor at Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund. He is an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies (Singapore); Visiting Fellow at Oxford University (UK), Chief Advisor at Asia-Pacific to the John Templeton Foundation, Director of the Green Accounting for Indian States Project, and Member of the Governing Council of the Economic Society of Singapore.

Sanyal's list of achievements will leave you in awe of him. He was named Young Global Leader for 2010 by the World Economic Forum in Davos, an honour given to select individuals below the age of 40 for outstanding contributions across disciplines including politics, academia, sports, business, and art. In 2008, CNBC profiled him as a "Young Turk" in recognition to his contributions to Asia's financial markets. The Singapore government honoured him as a Young Leader 2014 at the World Cities Summit held in June 2014.

In July 2014, Sanyal won the first International Indian Achiever's Award for his contributions to Literature at the inaugural gala event in Mumbai. The award is given every year to Indians who have excelled in different fields on the international stage. 

He is also the author of four best selling books 'The Indian Renaissance: India's Rise after a Thousand Years of Decline' , 'Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India's Geography', 'The Incredible History of India's Geography' and 'The Ocean of Churn: How human history was shaped by the Indian Ocean.'

Born in Kolkata, he studied in the much reputed St.Xavier's School and St.James' School. He holds a bachelors degree in Arts from Shri Ram College, Delhi University along with two Masters Degrees from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. A little known fact about him is that he was in the same class as Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, and Cory Booker, the Democratic Senator from New Jersey

(With PTI inputs)