Avinash Persaud

Special Envoy on Investment and Financial Services to the Prime Minister - Government of Barbados

Avinash Persaud is special envoy to the Prime Minister of Barbados, and emeritus professor at Gresham College in the UK. His career spreads across academia, finance, and public policy.

Mr. Persaud is a senior fellow at London Business School; a visiting fellow at the Centre for Financial Analysis and Policy, Judge Institute, Cambridge University; 2010 president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Section F) and past governor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

His current roles include chairman of Elara Capital PLC, an investment bank based in London and Mumbai; chairman of PBL, a real estate development company in the Caribbean; chairman of Intelligence Capital Limited, a London-based financial advisory firm; and board director of RBC Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mr. Persaud was formerly a senior executive at J. P. Morgan, State Street and GAM Holdings. He is a senior adviser to the Financial Services Law Reform Commission in India, a member of the UK Treasury’s Audit Committee and a member of the National Council of Economic Advisors in Barbados.

Mr. Persaud was the chairman of the Warwick Commission on Financial Reform, the chairman of the regulatory subcommittee of the UN High-Level Task Force on Financial Reform, co-chair of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Emerging Markets Network and member of the Pew Task Force to the US Senate Banking Committee.