Prof. Jayanth Varma did his post-graduation in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) in 1982, where he was awarded a Gold Medal for scholastic performance. Subsequently, he obtained his doctorate in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is also a qualified cost accountant.

Till his retirement at the end of 2024, he was a Professor in the Finance and Accounting Area at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) where he taught courses in capital markets, fixed income, alternative investments, risk management and corporate finance. He has been the Dean of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad for three years.

Prof. Varma was an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India for four years (2020-24). Prof. Varma has been a full time Member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for a year. Before that, he was a part time member of SEBI for three years. He has been the Chairman of the Secondary Markets Advisory Committee and several other committees of SEBI. He has also been Chairman of several committees set up by the Forward Markets Commission and the Ministry of Finance and Company Affairs. Prof. Varma was a member of the Raghuram Rajan Committee on Financial Sector Reforms and of the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission.

Prof. Varma has been on the Board of several companies: Axis Bank Limited, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Company Limited, Infosys BPM Limited and Punjab National Bank. He has also worked for a year with a large financial services company as an Executive Director in charge of Investments and Research for their mutual fund. Before joining the faculty of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, he worked for three years as Senior Consultant at a leading firm of management consultants and chartered accountants.

Prof. Varma has carried out extensive research in the field of Indian financial markets and finance theory and published extensively in Indian and international journals. He has authored extremely popular books on portfolio management and on the Indian securities scam. His book on the securities scam was a national best seller. Prof. Varma has more than a hundred papers and cases to his credit; in addition, he has published more than a hundred articles in newspapers and other periodicals.

He has carried out consulting assignments for several government, multilateral and private sector organizations in a wide range of areas including financing choices, risk management, management information and control systems, corporate strategy and corporate governance.

Prof. Varma's current research interests are principally in the area of financial markets including equity, debt, currency and derivative markets. He is also interested in broader issues related to the financial sector as also in mathematical modelling and computer simulation.

More information on Prof. Varma is available on his website:
https://www.jrvarma.in

Bio taken from Prof. Jayanth Varma's website in Jan 2025.

Date of Birth: December 31, 1959