Surjit Bhalla is Chairman of Oxus Investments, a New Delhi based research and portfolio management firm (equivalent to a “hedge fund”). Oxus has been managing investments in the Indian equity market since Dec. 1998; at that time, Oxus was one of the earliest (21st) firms to obtain a portfolio management license. Surjit obtained his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1969, his M.P.A. in 1972 from the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton, 1977. He has worked at the Rand Corporation, Brookings Institution and the World Bank as an economist; has taught at the Delhi School of Economics; and has worked as a proprietary trader/strategist/portfolio manager at the World Bank, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Oxus Investments. While at Oxus, Dr. Bhalla has also served on several committees of the government of India, most recently as an appointed member of the National Statistical Commission of India (since 2007). He was also a member of the two capital account convertibility committees of the RBI and government of India (1997 and 2006). He has also worked extensively with the securities regulator, SEBI (e.g. advisory committee on secondary markets, committee on introduction of derivatives, and committee on portfolio management services). He is on the governing board of India’s largest think tank, NCAER. He is also a regular contributor, since 2002, to the Aspen Institute program on the World Economy. He is author of several academic articles as well as four books on globalization and its effects on the world economy: Imagine There's No Country: Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in the Era of Globalization (2002), Underappreciated growth: How “Competitive” Exchange Rates Matter (forthcoming, 2009), The Middle Class Kingdoms of China and India (forthcoming, 2009) and Second Among Equals (2007). His first book, Between the Wickets: The Who and Why of the Best in Cricket, developed a model for evaluating performance in sports and was published in 1987. Most recently, he was invited to give the first A M Khusro memorial lecture. He has been invited to be a keynote speaker at several investment forums. He is also a regular contributor (over 400 articles) to Indian newspapers/magazines/TV on financial markets, economics, politics and cricket. Since February 2009, he is a host of a weekly interview/talk show called Tough Talk on NDTV.
