Dr. Ajit Ranade is presently Vice Chancellor of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, one of India’s premier higher educational institutions, founded in 1930. Ranade was earlier Chief Economist with the Aditya Birla Group, a 65 billion dollar multinational conglomerate. His career has spanned both academic and corporate roles. He has served on the boards of several companies, trusts and educational institutions. He is a Trustee of Pune International Centre, and an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Takshashila Institution. He has been member of several government and policy committees, including the committee on Fuller Capital Account Convertibility of the Reserve Bank of India. He is a columnist and writes on economics and current topics. He is a co-author of an award winning book “Rising to the China Challenge” (2021).

Ranade is co-founder and trustee of Association for Democratic Reforms, a citizen watchdog body. Ranade holds a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He received his PhD in Economics from Brown University, USA. He received the Distinguished Alumnus award from IIT Bombay in 2009.