Premila Nazareth Satyanand is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at India’s National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi and Founder, foreign direct investment.in, a fledgling Indian foreign direct investment research centre.
She began her career with the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, New York, and the Economist Intelligence Unit (now IMA India), New Delhi, facilitating the government-foreign direct investor dialogue on economic liberalization and advising foreign direct investors on entry strategy.
In the mid-1990s, she was seconded to South Africa’s Trade Ministry and the United Nations’ electoral missions in South Africa and the Western Sahara. She has consulted for UNCTAD, UNDP, UNICEF and the World Bank Group, contributed to the United Nations World Investment Report 2008, and was a Member of the Indian Planning Commission's Twelfth Plan Task Force on simplifying India’s business regulatory framework.
Most recently, she conceived and led India’s National Council of Applied Economic Research's project, 'Enhancing the Scope and Quality of Indian FDI Statistics,' which discovered significant limitations in India's ability to holistically assess the nature, distribution and impact of Indian FDI inflows and outflows, and presented its findings to the Government of India.
In 2008-2009, she co-managed the People’s RTI Assessment ,’ a national grassroots evaluation of the performance of India's first Right to Information Act. She now spends time in the Indian Himalayas, where she founded the National Geographic Channel’s rural Himalayan videovan and assists Aarohi’s (www.aarohi.org) developmental work with underprivileged mountain populations.
Premila has a B.A. in History from St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, and an M.A. in International Relations from Columbia University, New York.