Nilanjan Ghosh

Dr Nilanjan Ghosh is a Director at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in India, where he leads the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED) and ORF’s Kolkata Centre. His current roles also include Member of the Global Future Council on the Future of Nature and Security at the World Economic Forum (2023-25), Co-Chair of Task Force 3 on International Financial Architecture for Think20 under Brazil’s G20 Presidency (2024), Member of the Board of Country Representatives for the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE, 2024-25), and Member of the Research Advisory Committee for WWF India (2023-24).

Nilanjan was the President of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE, 2022-24) and the Director of the Think20 India Secretariat during India’s G20 Presidency in 2023. He was also a Member of the Expert Committee constituted by the Supreme Court of India in 2021, formulating the Net Present Value criteria for forest land diversion.

His career trajectory in reverse chronological order includes roles such as Senior Fellow at ORF, Senior Vice President & Chief Economist at the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Limited, and faculty positions at TERI School of Advanced Studies. From 2015 to 2020, he advised WWF India in establishing their Ecological Economics practice.

Nilanjan has taught at institutions including Linnaeus University, the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, and Jadavpur University, and visited Uppsala University, MIT, and Stanford University.

A natural resource economist with over two decades of experience, Nilanjan holds a Ph.D. from IIM Calcutta. He has authored/ edited 15 books and monographs and has written over 100 peer-reviewed papers and several commentaries/ op-eds. His advisory work spans organisations like IUCN, USAID, FORMAS, UNCTAD-India, WWF-UK, IWMI-WLE, etc.