The Indian government on Saturday named insider Urjit Patel as the new governor of the Reserve Bank of India, to replace popular central banker Raghuram Rajan when his term ends in September.
Patel was born in Nairobi Kenya in 1963, the descendent of immigrants from India’s western coastal state of Gujarat —from where his grandfather first migrated to Kenya. He studied in Gujarati community run Visa Oshwal Primary School and later in Jamhuri High School in Nairobi in Kenya. His parents, Ravindra and Manjula Patel, ran a chemical factory Rexo Products Ltd in Nairobi.
The third-generation Kenyan-Indian later studied Economics at the London School of Economics, a Masters from Oxford University and got his doctorate in Economics from Yale University in 1990.
Just like his Kenyan counterpart,Urjit is single and both have worked in different capacities and stations at the International Monetary Fund. He worked in the ministry of finance in India before he was appointed the Deputy Governor of RBI in 2013.
He currently runs the Indian central bank’s monetary policy department, working closely with outgoing governor Rajan who steps down on September 4.
