Indian American in charge of Wall St bailout effort

New Delhi, October 7:: US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has put an Indian American of Kashmiri origin in charge of the George Bush administration's $700-billion rescue effort for distressed financial institutions.

Neel Kashkari, 35, has been an advisor to Paulson since 2006 and was promoted to the post of second assistant secretary of the Treasury for international affairs this July, on the personal nomination of Bush.

In the six months that he has been appointed for, Kashkari had expected to zero in on a number of initiatives critical to ensuring US and global economic strength. “I look forward to reaffirming America’s commitment to open investment - which stimulates growth, creates jobs, enhances productivity and improves competitiveness,” he had said at the time of his appointment.

With US financial behemoths tumbling one after another over the last month, Kashkari’s stated role puts him in the spotlight of the American political economy with elections a month away and taxpayers crying foul about Main Street bailing out Wall Street.

His investment banking experience prior to joining the Bush administration, where he executed financial and strategic transactions had prepared him adequately for the treasury job. Kashkari was a vice president at Goldman Sachs and Co. in San Francisco where he headed the IT security investment banking practice and also advised companies on mergers and acquisitions and financial transactions.

Advising US and international companies on both debt and equity financing, global mergers and acquisitions, and coaching management teams and boards of directors had lent him a “first-hand insight into the challenges that US companies face as they strive to access markets abroad, while also competing with global players here at home,” Kashkari had said.

Pulling off the Paulson rescue act to everyone’s satisfaction will keep his hands full in coming weeks and months, but Kashkari has actively worked on matters relating to India in his treasury stint till date.

For the Indo-US bilateral investment treaty that has been under discussion for a while now, he was one of the key US negotiators.

At his confirmation hearing, Kashkari had told the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs that since joining the treasury in July 2006, he had led several policy initiatives, including “promoting Indian financial sector liberalisation and free trade through strengthened economic engagement and increased infrastructure investment.”

The Akron, Ohio-born Kashkari, originally hails from Kashmir. His father, Chaman Kashkari, is a retired professor of engineering at the University of Akron while mother Sheila is a pathologist.

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