Ramesh S. Arunachalam

Ramesh S Arunachalam wears many hats. He is an Industrial Engineer from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Trichy, India and an MBA (with Dual Concentration, Strategy and Marketing) from the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA. In the last 31 years, he has been a columnist with the Hindu Business Line (1995-97) and Moneylife (2011-2013 and 2019), a development practitioner and strategic advisor. He has worked in a wide range of areas including financial sector regulation and supervision, financial inclusion, microfinance, livelihoods and MSMEs, Gender and microfinance, ERP systems for microfinance and infrastructure finance, urban development, infrastructure financing, GIS for urban planning and e Governance.

During the last 31 years, Ramesh has completed 314 professional assignments. He has worked in 680 districts of India and has also travelled and worked extensively in about 31 countries in North America, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean across diverse projects (in senior positions). He is passionate about his work and brings strong inter-disciplinary insight to his assignments. His clients include governments (Governments of India, St Lucia, Singapore, Malawi, Uganda, Philippines, Afghanistan etc, several State Governments in India and many GoI Institutions like NCRPB, SIDBI, NABARD etc), bi-lateral agencies (DFID, USAID, DANIDA, NORAD, SIDA etc), multi-lateral agencies (UNDP, World Bank, ADB, IFAD, The Commonwealth Secretariat etc), regulators, commercial banks, investment banks, microfinance institutions, private sector firms and several other stakeholders globally.

He has authored numerous reports/studies/papers as part of his assignments, several of which have been published internationally and received global recognition. His blog on microfinance has been well received and he has also penned two books in microfinance and financial inclusion—“The Journey of Indian Microfinance: Lessons for the Future” and “An Idea Which Went Wrong: Commercial Microfinance in India”—both of which have received critical acclaim. His first novel is an entertaining crime thriller—“Where Angels Prey”—released in April 2015 through AuthorsUpFront, which again was well received. His non-fiction writing continued with critically acclaimed popular books—“Madam President: History in the Making?”, “Dirty Money: The U.S. Presidential Elections 2016”, “The Cinderella Notes: Demonetization and The Indian Economy”, “9/11: The Unanswered Questions”, “Powering A Billion Dreams: Towards A New Financial Inclusion Paradigm”, “Never Waste A Crisis: Towards A Stable Financial Sector”, “Piercing The Corporate Veil: Towards An Accountable Financial Sector”, “Central Bank: Mandates, Autonomy and Accountability”, “Powering India To Double Digit Growth: Five Key Steps To A Robust Economy” and “COVID-19: Implications for Financial Inclusion, MSME Development and Agriculture”, (see www.amazon.com).