London, June 30, 2007
Darshan Kaur
On June 29, 2007, NRI (non-resident Indian) Shriti Vadera, economist,
has been appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in
the Department for International Development
Shriti Vadera, an investment banker was a central figure in the
Treasury presided over by Brown. Since April 1999 she has been
a special adviser to Gordon Brown during his time as Chancellor
of the Exchequer and a member of the Treasury's Council of Economic
Advisers.
Vadera was employed at investment bank Warburg Dillon Read near
about 14 years. She worked in the firm's banking, project finance,
sovereign advisory and privatisation teams.
She developed Brown's initiative on Education for all, launched
with Nelson Mandela. She was also behind International Finance
Facility for Immunisation, the innovative scheme developed with
the Gates Foundation to raise USD 4 billion through bond sales
to immunize 500 million children against preventable diseases.
She said, "I am proud of DFID's (Department for International
Development) track record and international leadership in the
battle against poverty around the world. I am looking forward
to working with DFID Secretary of State Douglas Alexander to carry
on the government 's mission to help lift millions of people out
of poverty.
She has been involved in a number of high-profile public private
partnership consultations in Britain, most notably the privatisation
and sell-off of the defence research company QinetiQ and the part-privatisation
of the London Underground
She was born in Uganda and moved to India in 1970. She grew up
in India then moved UK. She read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
at Somerville College, Oxford. She is apolitical and a hardcore
bureaucrat
