Ms. Ketki Bhagwati is a senior advisor at the South Asia Center. Since 2016, she has been serving as an Independent Director on several Indian boards, including Axis Bank Ltd, India’s third largest private sector bank with assets of over $100 billion. Her other boards include Omniactive Health Texhnologies Ltd, a neutraceuticals manufacturing company; Bayer Cropscience Ltd, a subsidiary of Bayer AG; and Tikona Infinet Ltd a broadband service provider where she is the nominee Director of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). She also sits on the Investment Committe of a US-based sustainable solutions firm Encourage Capital’s private equity fund, which invests in specialized financial instituitons focused on developing and scaling solar rooftop finance for MSMEs in India.

Prior to 2016, Ms. Bhagwati was a former Chief Investment Officer in the Financial Institutions Group at the IFC, the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group where she worked for 25 years. She has expertise in private equity, M&A, debt & structured finance and distressed asset workouts across sectors in several regions including Asia, the Middle East & Africa. Before IFC, Ms. Bhagwati worked at the Credit Rating Information Services of India (CRISIL) in Mumbai. 

Ms. Bhagwati has a Bachelors of Arts from Wellesley College and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is currently a member of the Wellesley College Business Leadership Council and Golden Seeds, an early stage investment firm with a focus on women entrepreneurs.