Shakti Sinha has been Director at India Foundation an independent think tank, and also the head of Policy Research Group at the Bureau of Research in Industry and Economic Fundamentals (BRIEF), an economic think tank. He has a master’s in public policy from George Mason University, and a master in Indian and Chinese history from Delhi University. He was a member of  the Indian Administrative Service from 1979 to 2013 when he took voluntary retirement. He has held positions at different levels at the federal, provincial and local levels, including as private secretary to prime minister (Vajpayee), head of Delhi’s power utility, finance secretary in Delhi provincial government, chief secretary (chief executive) of the Andaman government and others. Internationally, he headed the United Nation’s governance & development team in Afghanistan (2006-09) coordinating donor support to the Afghan government, and was earlier Senior Advisor to Executive Director on the World Bank board (2000-2004).

Mr Sinha has worked at think tanks in India (Observer Research Foundation)  and Singapore (Institute of South Asian Studies) and written many book chapters, working papers, briefs, columns etc on governance and political economy of India, Indian foreign policy & strategic affairs, Chinese economy and politics, and on Afghanistan, for global and Indian publications.