Professor and Musician: Viral Acharya, RBI’s New Deputy Governor

Banker on the excel-sheets, musician in the streets.

(Photo: stern.nyu.edu)

The new Deputy Governor of RBI is not a “boring banker” as many would expect. Viral Acharya has been a rockstar in his heyday.

An alumnus of New York University’s Stern School of Business, Acharya has established himself in the world of financial research, much like Raghuram Rajan, and has an equally colourful personality to match, as reported by Economic Times.

An RBI notification states that he will take charge on 20 January 2017 and head the monetary policy and research cluster. He replaces Governor R Gandhi who is currently in charge of that cluster.

Acharya has been a professor at the Stern School since 2009, before which he had been at the London Business School.

He received his degree from IIT-Bombay in computer engineering and was awarded the President’s medal in 1995.

His resume runs into 14-pages, listing various teaching positions he has held, journals edited, publications and awards received.

The Deputy Governor is in favour of cleaning up the Indian banking system by either shrinking assets or through adequate capital.

Apart from a stellar banking and teaching career, Acharya has also released his own album entitled “Yaadon ke Silsile” with at least 10 of his own compositions on it.

(Photo: stern.nyu.edu)

On a side note, you can even buy his album to support his music career. Something Twitter was very receptive of.

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