Dr. Ajit Ranade is Senior Fellow and Trustee at Pune International Centre, with a 35-year career spanning academia, research and industry. He served as Vice Chancellor of Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics (2022–24) and earlier as Group Executive President & Chief Economist at the Aditya Birla Group. He has been on apex industry bodies such as CII, FICCI and MCCIA, and served on RBI committees. A long-standing columnist and co-author of Rising to the China Challenge, he also co-founded the Association for Democratic Reforms. Educated at IIT Bombay, IIM Ahmedabad and Brown University (PhD), he received IITB’s Distinguished Alumnus Award.