Ratna Sahay is currently an Honorary Professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research in Delhi (India) and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC. She obtained her Ph.D in Economics from New York University in 1990, and began her career as an academic and taught at Delhi University and New York University. She also serves on working groups of the G-20 and the World Economic Forum and is a member of the External Advisory Panel on Gender at the IMF. Sahay joined the International Monetary Fund in 1989 and retired in 2003, where her experience was wide-ranging, leading several IMF products and activities, many of which have been in new areas for the Fund (such as the financial surveillance strategy and the gender mainstreaming strategy); leading surveillance and program country missions; conducting macroeconomic and financial policy analysis and giving advice to finance ministers, prime ministers, and central bank governors in advanced, emerging market, and low-income countries; producing original research and publishing in top economics journals; and representing the IMF in several global and national fora. Sahay has worked across many departments (Asia and Pacific, European, Middle East and Central Asia, Western Hemisphere, Finance, Monetary and Capital Markets, Research, and the Office of the Managing Director). She has held managerial positions for three-fourths of her Fund career, including senior positions such as Acting Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department, Senior Advisor on Gender to Kristalina Georgieva (Managing Director), Advisor to Stanley Fischer (the First Deputy Managing Director), Advisor to Michael Mussa and Kenneth Rogoff (Economic Councilors of the IMF), Deputy Director to José Viñals and Tobias Adrian (Financial Councilors of the IMF), and Deputy Director to Masood Ahmed (Director of Middle East Department).
Sahay represented the Fund at over 100 conferences and seminars at headquarters and during missions to over 50 countries, including IMF Annual and Spring meetings, donor meetings, the Financial Stability Board, the Bank of International Settlement, G-7, G-20, OECD. She also worked with Jeffrey Sachs in formulating the original Millennium Development Goals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Her analytical work has been widely covered in news media including in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reuters, and Bloomberg. Inside the IMF, Sahay has served on or led 20+ committees and task forces, including the Financial Surveillance Group, Capital Flows Group, Taskforce on Gender, Review Committee (responsible for the selection of Fund-wide managers), External Assignment Committee, Communications Strategy Group, Diversity Council, and Committee on Capacity Building. She also served as the Senior Personnel Manager and Senior Budget Manager in several departments, and as a member of the committee that reviewed the activities of CAFRAL, Reserve Bank of India.
