Hyderabad: Syed Akbaruddin, a former diplomat and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has joined the Reserve Bank of India’s Central Board as a part-time, non-official director for a four-year term.
Akbaruddin has joined the Central Board alongside Annie George Mathew, former Special Secretary, Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, and Janmejaya Kumar Sinha, Chairman of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), India. The appointments bring together experience across diplomacy, public finance, economic policy and business strategy and raise the number of directors to 14.
Mathew, 62, a former Special Secretary in the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, is serving as a full-time member of the Sixteenth Finance Commission. Sinha, 66, is an economist and management consultant who has held senior leadership roles at BCG.
A 1985 batch Indian Foreign Service officer, Akbaruddin brings more than three decades of experience across diplomacy, international affairs and public policy. He served as India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2016 to 2020 and was earlier the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs.
Commenting on the appointment, Akbaruddin, currently the Dean of the Kautilya School of Public Policy here, said, “It is an honour and a privilege to serve on the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India, one of the country’s premier public institutions. I am grateful for the trust placed in me and look forward to contributing, with humility and diligence, to its deliberations in the service of India’s economy and people.”
Following his diplomatic career, Akbaruddin has been serving as Dean of the Kautilya School of Public Policy since 2021.
