M. Damodaran

Meleveetil Damodaran is an Indian corporate advisor, mentor, and former senior government official. He is a director on the boards of Biocon and InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo). He was previously on the boards of Larsen & Toubro, Hero MotoCorp, Tech Mahindra and CRISIL.

He is the founder Chairperson of Excellence Enablers Private Limited, a niche Corporate Governance advisory firm and the Founder and Managing Trustee of Non Executive Directors in Conversation Trust (NEDICT).

Early life
Meleveetil Damodaran was born in Palakkad district, Kerala, India in May, 1947. He attended Campion High School, Tiruchirapalli, and after completing his pre-university in Loyola College, Chennai, he spent a little over 2 years at Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He graduated in Economics and Law from the Universities of Madras and Delhi respectively.

Career
After 6 months each as a Probationary Officer in Indian Bank and State Bank of India, he joined the IAS - 1971 batch - in the Indian state of Tripura, where he served in different developmental and regulatory positions. He was appointed Tripura's Chief Secretary in 1992.

In 2001, he was appointed the Chairman of UTI to rescue India's largest and oldest investment institution, which had collapsed. He was simultaneously given charge of IDBI, another of India's major financial institutions.

As Chairman of SEBI, he brought corporate governance practices to India's securities market. While at SEBI, he was elected Chairman of the Emerging Markets Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), a position he held till he demitted office as Chairman, SEBI.

He chaired the Government of India constituted Committee for recommendations to scale up PE/VC investments in India and to streamline regulations thereto. He also chaired the Government of India constituted Taskforce for setting up Resolution Corporation of India. He was the Chairman of Ministry of Corporate Affairs Committee for Reforming the Regulatory Environment for doing Business in India and Chairman of Reserve Bank of India’s Committee on Customer Service in Banks. He was the founder Chairman of the Society and Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management Tiruchirappalli (IIMT).

He chaired the Taskforce on Corporate Governance constituted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

He was appointed Chairman of IndiGo (InterGlobe Aviation) on 24 January 2019.[6] and stepped down on 3 May 2022. He was appointed as a Non-Executive Director on the Board on 16 July 2022.