Bery had earlier served as the Director-General (Chief Executive) of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi.
New Delhi: The Modi government’s public policy think-tank NITI Aayog will have a new vice-chairman from 1 May, when economist Suman K. Bery takes over from Rajiv Kumar.
Kumar, who replaced Arvind Panagariya in August 2017 when the latter decided to return to academics, announced his resignation Friday.
A graduate of politics, philosophy, and economics of Magdalene College at the University of Oxford, Bery worked at the World Bank for 28 years from 1972 to 2000 in various capacities, including as an economist in its Public Finance Division and as division chief, economic adviser, and lead economist for the World Bank’s operations in Latin America.
From 1992-1994 — the age of India’s liberalisation — Bery worked as a special consultant to the Reserve Bank of India in Bombay while he was on leave from the World Bank.
On his return to India in 2001, Bery joined National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), a New Delhi-based non-profit think tank focused on economics, as director-general — a position he served until 2011.
“[Dr. Bery] is a very good macroeconomist,” says economist Ila Patnaik. “We have remained in touch over the years and did not just work together at NCAER, but on many other things as well.”
He has also been a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, RBI’s Technical Advisory Committee, and the National Statistical Commission.
Suman Bery was chief economist of Shell International, based in The Hague, The Netherlands, from early 2012 till mid-2016, has been a non-resident fellow at the Brussels-based economics think-tank Bruegel and a Senior Fellow of the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth.
“[Dr. Bery] advised the board and management of Royal Dutch Shell on global economic and political developments,” India Today reported about his tenure at Shell. “He also was part of the senior leadership of Shell’s global scenarios group. While at Shell, he led a collaborative project with Indian think tanks to apply scenario modelling to India’s energy sector.”
He also wrote regularly for Business Standard from 2003 until 2020, publishing columns and opinion pieces about economic and monetary policies within India and globally.
