Janak Raj is a Senior Fellow and leads the macroeconomic segment in the Growth, Finance and Development vertical at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). He specialises in climate-related issues, with a strong focus on climate finance, the reforms of multilateral development banks (MDBs) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to advance the climate finance agenda and the macroeconomic impact of climate change. He is currently also a member of the Global Advisory Board of the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise (CETEx) hosted by the London School of Economics and Political Science, London and the Advisory Board of JM Financial Centre for Financial Research of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Udaipur.

With over four decades of experience, he has held important positions across prominent institutions in India and abroad. He served as an Executive Director at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), where he was also a member of its statutory Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), Principal Adviser of the Monetary Policy Department and International Department, and head of the Department of Economic Policy and Research. His extensive experience also includes serving as Senior Advisor to the Executive Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Sri Lanka at the IMF in Washington D.C. and Senior Consultant at the Ministry of Finance (Department of Financial Services), India. He also served as RBI nominee director on the Governing Board of the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange).

He holds a PhD in Economics from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and is an alumnus of the Senior Executive Programme at Columbia Business School, New York.