Mr Sameer Kochhar, Chairman, SKOCH Group

Mr Sameer Kochhar, Chairman, SKOCH Group

Mr Sameer Kochhar is a social scientist, leading reforms historian in India and an acclaimed author. His domain expertise on socio-economic issues has been used by the government and private sector alike for consultancy on public policy and strategy. He has published 16 books including Defeating Poverty, ModiNomics and The Untold Story of Indian Reforms. He is privileged to have his books released by Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Narendra Modi, Mr Arun Jaitley and Mr P. Chidambaram, among several other luminaries. His mantra is growth, livelihoods and equity.

He is an industry veteran with a multifaceted career spanning over 37 years with extensive experience in using action research to bring felt-needs to policy and strategy. He is credited with several well-performing public policy interventions in areas of digital, financial and social inclusion. Considered fearless, he is often seen standing up to be counted on issues of national importance, asking difficult questions and offering seasoned advice. He has assessed first-hand a large number of projects in India and has also created one of the biggest independent knowledge repositories on what works/ This also serves as perhaps the only institutional memory of reforms in India.

He has been a member of several expert groups and committees constituted by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, advocating a case for a strengthening of local self-governance through use of technology; and, the Ministry of Communications and IT on the evaluation of National e-Governance Plan. He was on the advisory committee of College of Agricultural Banking of Reserve Bank of India for nearly 6 years. He has represented India in inter-governmental conferences.