Ila Patnaik is the Chief Economist at the Aditya Birla Group. Prior to this, she served as a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. Other recent, former positions include Principal Economic Advisor to the Government of India, Non-Resident Senior Associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and regular columnist at the Indian Express and The Print. She holds a BA (Economics) from Delhi University, an MA (Economics) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a Ph.D.(Economics) from the University of Surrey.