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This article is about the Rangan Varadan, co-founder MicroGraam
Rangan Varadan (born October 23, 1965) is the co-founder of MicroGraam Marketplace Pvt. Ltd and currently its chief executive officer. Born in Chennai, Varadan did his bachelor’s in commerce from Vivekananda College, Chennai and also earned a degree in chartered accountancy. Between 1987 to 1992, Varadan headed the accountancy firm Rangan & Krishnan, Chartered Accountants, Madras. He then earned his PhD in Finance from Lehigh University, USA, where he also served as adjunct professor. In 1999, Varadan joined Infosys and left as Vice President of banking and capital markets domain consulting group in 2008. In 2010 Varadan co-founded MicroGraam with Sekhar Sarukkai. After studying and teaching in US, Varadan returned to India in early 1999and was to join as a professor at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. It was here while delivering a seminar on finance, a study of strategic decision making with application of game-theory at IIM, Bangalore, Mohandas Pai, the former board member of Infosys, spotted Varadan and after the lecture offered him a job. Varadan was asked to head capital market domain consulting division. He was made VP of banking and capital markets domain consulting group. After spending nearly a decade at Infosys, Varadan in 2008 decided to focus his energies to make capital accessible to the poorest of the poor in India. Before starting MicroGraam, Varadan joined a business correspondent company. During this period, Rangan traveled extensively in rural India. He visited more than 150 villages and met hundreds of rural communities. Varadan once in an interview said: “Travels inside the rural India was the real transformation.” After understanding the needs of the people and how finance can be made available to the deserving people in rural India, Varadan co-founded MicroGraam, which now has close to 2000 borrowers with a loan portfolio of Rs 3.5 Cr with a 99% repayment rate.