Shriram Group Appoints Apoorva Javadekar As Chief Economist

Apoorva Javadekar, chief economist at Shriram Group and chief executive of Shriram Research

Shriram Group has appointed Dr Apoorva Javadekar as chief economist, and as chief executive officer of Shriram Research, putting macroeconomic and financial markets research inside the group.

New roles: chief economist, Shriram Group, and chief executive officer, Shriram Research
Previously: chief economist at Muthoot FinCorp
Earlier: professor of finance at the Indian School of Business, and research director at CAFRAL, an institution set up by the Reserve Bank of India
PhD in economics from Boston University
Has served on the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s Research Advisory Committee

What Apoorva Javadekar Brings Together

The record joins three things that financial businesses usually have to source separately: academic economics, regulatory and policy work, and an operating stint inside a lending business. CAFRAL and the SEBI committee are the policy side; Muthoot FinCorp is where the theory met a loan book.

His research spans macroeconomics, banking, capital markets and asset management, and has been presented at forums involving the International Monetary Fund, central banks and the American and European Economic Associations.

Why A Lender Builds Its Own Research Desk

Shriram’s businesses sit close to household finance, small business credit and capital markets, which means interest rates, liquidity and regulation are inputs rather than context. Bought-in research answers the questions the market is already asking; an internal desk answers the ones a specific loan book needs answered.

Subhasri Sriram, managing director and chief executive of Shriram Capital, framed the appointment around translating economic trends into insights the group’s businesses can act on, which is the operative distinction between research as publishing and research as an input to underwriting.

The Scale That Makes It Worth Doing

As of March 2026 the group reported more than 2.98 crore customers, over 1.15 lakh employees and more than 4,700 branches, with assets under management of ₹3.69 lakh crore.

At that size a small improvement in reading a credit cycle is worth more than the entire cost of a research function, which is the arithmetic behind hiring an economist rather than subscribing to one. Whether it pays off depends on whether Shriram Research ends up shaping decisions or producing commentary alongside them.