Subba Rao Duvvuri served as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for five years (2008-13). Prior to that, he was Finance Secretary to the Government of India (2007-08) and Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (2005-07).
Duvvuri joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1972, topping the highly competitive civil services entry examination in that year. As a career civil servant, he worked in various positions in the state government of Andhra Pradesh and in the federal government of India. He was a Lead Economist in the World Bank (1999 - 2004).
Duvvuri got an MS in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (1972). He went to Graduate School at Ohio State University (1977-78) where he earned an MS in Economics and was subsequently a Fulbright Scholar at MIT (1982-83) studying Public Finance. He got his doctorate in Economics from Andhra University (1998).
Duvvuri went in as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India just a week before the global financial crisis erupted in mid-September 2008, and he led the effort to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the Indian economy and to institute economic and financial sector reforms reflecting the lessons of the crisis.
Duvvuri was alternate governor for India on the Governing Boards of the World Bank and the IMF. He participated actively in the G 20 meetings, the meetings of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (of the IMF), bi-monthly meetings of central bank governors at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel and a host of other international committees and conferences where his views were respected for the emerging market perspectives he brought to bear on issues in global policy coordination.
Duvvuri’s book “Who Moved My Interest Rate” (2016) chronicling his experiences in leading the Reserve Bank of India through five turbulent years is notable for the way he explained the policy dilemmas and challenges facing an emerging economy central bank in a financially globalized world.
After stepping down as Governor, RBI, Duvvuri was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the National University of Singapore (2014-18) and at the University of Pennsylvania (2019-20). Most recently, he was a Senior Fellow at Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs (2023).
BSc, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
MSC, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
MS, Ohio State University
