Rakesh Mohan is an Indian economist and former Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India. He is the Vice Chairperson of Indian Institute for Human Settlements. He was appointed in November 2012 as an Executive Director of the IMF for a three-year term, and in April 2010, he joined Nestle India, as a non-executive director. He remained an adviser to numerous ministries in Government of India, including industry, and finance, and later became an important part of Indian economic reforms in the 1990s, and his report under the 'Rakesh Mohan Committee on Infrastructure', became a "landmark document in the evolution of thinking on economic policy issues". He is the Professor in the Practice of International Economics of Finance, Yale School of Management, and Senior Fellow, Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University and will shortly be taking over as India's Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, USA.
Mohan started his career in urban economics, 1974 to 1988. During this period, as a part of the World Bank's, City Study project, he studied the city of Bogota, Colombia, 1976–1980. He returned to India in 1980, where he first joined the Planning Commission as a senior consultant, while Manmohan Singh was also a member. In 1985 according to the American Economic Association he was listed as "Economist" in the Philippines Division of the World Bank with research interests listed as "Economic policy and analysis of the Philippines". He became the Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India in September 2002 and moved to North Block in October 2004 as Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs and Chief Economic Adviser to the Finance Minister of India till July 2005, before returning to RBI, where he remained till June 2009, when he took up an assignment at Stanford Centre for International Development at Stanford University, US, and subsequently joined McKinsey and Co's economic research wing. In 2010 back in India from his project, he worked with Nandan Nilekani, Shirish Patel, Keshub Mahindra, Deepak Parekh, to set up Indian Institute for Human Settlements, in Delhi. In April 2010, he joined the board of directors of Nestle India. In November 2012, he joined IMF as executive director. In addition to India, Mohan will also represent three other countries including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan on the IMF board. Also, he is on the advisory board of OMFIF where he is regularly involved in meetings regarding the financial and monetary system.
