Ashish has over 27 years of experience building greenfield technology-driven financial services businesses in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. His experience spans straddling entrepreneurship, industry, and policy-making. He was Director of Monitoring and Evaluation at the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), NITI Aayog, responsible for monitoring schemes M and E of all trade finance and commerce ministries. He was responsible for working on the TIME Lab (Technology and Innovation for Monitoring and Evaluation) and training the state government in Monitoring and Evaluation. He has worked across various organisations in various domains, including digital payments, branchless banking, digital lending, and MFI in organisations such as Jumo, Aditya Birla Group, Motorola, First Rand Bank, and Comviva.
Ashish Desai’s research interests are firmly rooted in the intersection of technology and financial services. He is particularly interested in digital financial literacy and livelihoods, remote sensing and alternative data for public policy and private goods, digital public infrastructure and its positive externalities, and co-creation and collaborative governance of technology. His academic contributions are recognised through his roles as a senior visiting fellow at the National Council of Applied Economic Research and a senior visiting scientist at the Rural Data Research and Analysis (RuDRA) Lab at IIT Bombay. Ashish holds a degree in engineering from VJTI, Mumbai, an MMS from JBIMS, and a PhD from IIM Kozhikode.
Ph.D.
MBA
BE
Technology and Financial Services
Digital Financial Literacy and Livelihoods
Remote Sensing and Alternative Data for Public Policy
Private Goods, Digital Public Infrastructure and its Positive Externalities
Co-Creation and Collaborative Governance of Technology
Fintech and Value Creation
Big Data for Risk Management
Desai, A., Sensarma, R., and Thomas, A. (2025). The Role of Business Training in Improving Digital Financial Literacy: Evidence from a Field Experiment for Subsistence Women Entrepreneurs. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2025.2470217
Desai, A., Sensarma, R., and Thomas, A. (2025). Can loan characteristics cushion the impact of an exogenous shock on subsistence entrepreneurs? Evidence from India. Applied Economics, 1–17, Taylor and Francis Online. https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2025.2453757
Desai, A. D., Sensarma, R., and Thomas, A. (2024). Roles of financial literacy and entrepreneurial orientation in economic empowerment of rural women entrepreneurs. Oxford Development Studies, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2024.2403066
Desai, A., and Manoharan, A. P. (2024). Digital transformation and public administration: The impacts of India’s digital public infrastructure. International Journal of Public Administration, 1–4. Taylor and Francis Online. ( ABDC category – B). https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2024.2350762
Desai, A., 2023 Public Value Creation Through Combined Consumption of Multiple Public Services – Case of India Stack International Journal of Public Administration (ABDC Category B) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01900692.2023.2243401
Desai A, Sharlo Z, Goswami s (2022), Big Data: Transforming Evidence based Policy Making; M and E@70: Strengthening India’s Evidence Systems for Accelerated Reforms and Inclusive Growth; Ed. Ashish Desai, Urvashi Prasad, DMEO, NITI Aayog (ISBN: 978-81-953811-6-6)
Desai A, Fatima M, Shivangi S (2022), Mixed Methods in Evaluation: Going beyond “causality” to understand the “Why” and “How”; M and E@70: Strengthening India’s Evidence Systems for Accelerated Reforms and Inclusive Growth; Ed. Ashish Desai, Urvashi Prasad; DMEO, NITI Aayog (ISBN: 978-81-953811-6-6)
Desai A and Desai S (2023), ‘Right Livelihood’ – Where Sustainable environment Matters: A case of Sustainable Entrepreneurship by Rural Woman from India; Gender, Environment and Sustainable Development: Challenges and Responses from India; Ed. Shweta Prasad, Routledge, UK
Desai A and Chetna S (2023). ‘Product Innovation and Agency Development to drive the growth of women-owned enterprises”, ORF G20 , W-20 special issue
Desai, A., and Kulkarni, S. (2025). Unpacking digital transformation: An Ansoff Matrix perspective. CXO Today.
Desai, A., (2025). How open networks can unlock logistics market for India’s GDP growth. Forbes India.
Desai, A. and Sharma, P., (2024). Troika of digital, physical and electric infrastructure and India’s e-commerce growth. Forbes India.
Desai, A. and Jeewan, K., (2024). RBI’s non-interest rate interventions to balance growth with risk. Forbes India.
Desai, A., (2024). India’s banking access rises but MSMEs remain underserved: How account aggregator can change that. Financial Express.
Information System and Data analytics :
Big data for public policy
Fintech Risk Management
Economics of Platforms
Digital Public Infrastructure
Data for Development
Programme Monitoring and Evaluation
Data Analysis and Visualisation for Public Policy
Remote Sensing and Satellite Data
Monitoring and Evaluation of Public Policy (Co-teaching with Prof NC Narayanan of Centre for Policy Studies; 3.0 credit)
Remote Sensing and Satellite Data Regression
Residential MDP for Mid-Career Indian Economic Service Officers.
Module: Data and Policy, Digital Public Infrastructure.
Executive Certificate Program on Public Policy
Module: Digital Public Infrastructure and Economic Externalities
SNDT University, Mumbai Member of Academic Council (Governor Of Maharashtra Nominee) December 2023
MannDeshi Mahila Sahakari Bank (India’s first women-only rural bank)-Member of Board of Management, 2019–2022.
M and E@70: Strengthening India’s Evidence Systems for Accelerated Reforms and Inclusive Growth; DMEO, NITI Aayog (ISBN: 978-81-953811-6-6)
Collaborative Governance and Digital Transformations in the Global South: Evidence and Insights from India, International Journal of Public Administration (ABDC Category B; Under process to be published Q3 2024)
Reviewer for International Journal of Public Administration
Reviewer for Asia Pacific Journal of Evaluation
Advisory to Manndeshi Foundation and MannDeshi Mahila Sahakari Bank (India’s first women only rural bank)
