Dr Nilanjan Ghosh heads Development Studies at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and serves as the operational and executive head of ORF’s Kolkata Centre. He was the Director of ORF’s Centre for New Economic Diplomacy. With over two decades of experience across policy research, corporate, and academia, his career spans senior roles as Senior Fellow at ORF, Senior Vice President & Chief Economist at the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Limited, and faculty positions at the TERI School of Advanced Studies. Between 2015 and 2020, he played a formative role in shaping WWF India’s Ecological Economics’ analytical and policy orientations.
Nilanjan has held several high-level global and national roles that reflect his standing at the intersection of global economic governance, sustainability, and development finance. These include Member of the Global Future Council on the Future of Nature and Security at the World Economic Forum (2023–24); Co-Chair of Task Force 3 on International Financial Architecture under Think20 during Brazil’s G20 Presidency (2024); Member of the Board of Country Representatives of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (2024–25); and Member of the Research Advisory Committee, WWF India (2023–25). He also served as President of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE) (2022–24) and as Director of the Think20 India Secretariat during India’s G20 Presidency in 2023, where he helped steer policy deliberations on global economic and development challenges. In 2021, he was appointed to the Expert Committee constituted by the Supreme Court of India for valuing trees.
Nilanjan has taught at leading institutions in India (IIM Calcutta) and Europe (Linnaeus University) and has visited Stanford University (USA) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). Nilanjan has advised a range of international organisations, research councils, UN bodies, and global conservation and development institutions.
Widely recognised for his works in the domains of ecological economics and development finance, Nilanjan holds a PhD in Resource Economics from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. His work seeks to bridge rigorous economic analysis with real-world policy design, foregrounding interdisciplinary thinking, institutional reform, and pragmatic pathways for sustainable and inclusive development.
