R. Vaidyanathan is Professor of Finance and Control and UTI Chair Professor in the area of Capital Markets. His areas of interest are Corporate Finance, Investments, Portfolio Management, Risk Management and Pensions. He is the Chairperson for the Centre for Capital Market and Risk Management [CCMR] at IIMB. He is a National Fellow of ICSSR.
A graduate of the Loyola College, Madras and a Masters from the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta he obtained his Fellow in Management (Doctorate) from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta where he also taught for four years.
As a visiting Fulbright Scholar in Corporate Finance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigne USA, he studied the credit rating mechanisms of major agencies like S&P, Moody?s etc.
He was a Visiting Faculty at the International Center for Banking and Financial Services at Manchester Business School and was a Fellow of Salzburg Seminar at Austria. He was a visiting Professor of Finance at the Faculty of Management at the University of Mauritius.
He was a visiting Fulbright Fellow at the Georgia State University at Atlanta and International Insurance Foundation at Washington D. C. during 2003 and studied the Pension Systems in the USA.
He was the Chairperson of the MBA programme [1992-1995] and founder Chairperson of the Centre for Insurance Research and Education [CIRE] at IIMB.
Named one of the best ten professors at all IIMs by Business Today magazine during 2006-2007
Prof. Vaidyanathan is a member of the Advisory Committee on Secondary Markets of the Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI). He is the member of technical committee on Market intelligence of SEBI covering stock/bonds/derivatives and currency markets. He was a member of the expert committee (L.C. Gupta committee) on derivative trading appointed by SEBI.
He was a member of a committee constituted by IRDA to study the pension schemes for the unorganized sector. He was a member of the Multi-disciplinary High power Group to reform Employees Provident Fund Organization [EPFO].
He was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee [TAC] on Money, Foreign Exchange and Government Securities Markets, and the Standing Advisory Committee on Data Base of the Indian economy a of the RBI. He is on the default committee of NSE.
He has been appointed as a trustee for the New Pension System [NPS] by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority of India [PFRDA].
He was the President of the Asia Pacific Risk and Insurance Association (APRIA) (HQ Singapore). He is on the International Academic Advisory Board [IAAB] of Singapore College of Insurance [SCI]. He is on the Board of many Corporates and Banks.
He has published a number of articles in India and abroad on Corporate Finance and Capital Markets. He has also published extensively about the role of Unincorporated Sector in the Indian economy. He has published two books one on the Non-corporate India and the other on Pensions-- facing the future. He has been a consultant to various organizations such as HLL, LIC, ITC, BPL, and a number of Banks.