Ruchir Sharma
Capital is being deployed into a world where the old assumptions about growth, globalisation and state policy no longer hold. Boards and investment committees need a framework for distinguishing structural shifts from cyclical noise across emerging and developed economies. The cost of getting this read wrong, on country exposure, currency, or capital allocation, has rarely been higher.
Ruchir Sharma is Chairman of Rockefeller International and a Financial Times columnist who helps boards and investors read macro-economic and political signals across emerging and developed markets.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Ruchir Sharma
- He runs live capital at Rockefeller International and Breakout Capital. The frameworks he presents are tested against the same allocation decisions his audience is making.
- His Breakout Nations and Rise and Fall of Nations theses give boards a structured set of rules for ranking countries on growth durability, not a country-of-the-month view.
- What Went Wrong with Capitalism, named a 2024 Book of the Year by both the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, gives him a current, contested argument on debt, state expansion and inequality that lands directly on capital allocation decisions in developed markets.
- Two decades of on-the-ground reporting across Indian and emerging-market elections give him a political-risk read that desk-bound macro speakers cannot match.
- A working FT column and prior NYT column mean his arguments are already road-tested against serious editorial scrutiny.
Biography highlights
- Chairman of Rockefeller International; founder and CIO of Breakout Capital.
- 25 years at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, latterly as Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist.
- Author of five books, including Breakout Nations, The Rise and Fall of Nations and What Went Wrong with Capitalism, named a 2024 Book of the Year by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.
- Contributing editor and columnist at the Financial Times; former New York Times opinion columnist.
- Recognised as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2007), a Foreign Policy top global thinker (2012) and one of Bloomberg’s 50 Most Influential People (2015).
- Has covered every Indian national election since 1998, and travels widely across emerging economies meeting policymakers, CEOs and local leaders.
Biography
Most countries that look like the next economic miracle do not become one. The work that made Sharma’s reputation, Breakout Nations and The Rise and Fall of Nations, is built on that observation. Both books set out a structured, rule-based way of judging which economies are likely to sustain growth and which are running on borrowed time.
He brings that lens to the room as a working investor, not a commentator. As Chairman of Rockefeller International and CIO of Breakout Capital, he is allocating capital across the same emerging and developed markets he writes about. Before that he spent 25 years at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, ending as Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist.
His most recent book, What Went Wrong with Capitalism, was named a 2024 Book of the Year by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. It argues that a century of expanding government, bailouts, entitlements and financial rescues, has distorted Western markets and entrenched inequality. The thesis travels directly into capital allocation conversations about debt, valuation and the limits of policy support.
The reporting work underneath all of this is unusual. Sharma has covered every Indian national election since 1998 and travels regularly through emerging economies meeting politicians, CEOs and local operators. That fieldwork is what gives his macro calls their texture, and what separates a Sharma keynote from a desk-research presentation.
Key speaking topics
- Emerging markets and the rules of national economic success
- Macro-economic and capital allocation outlook
- The long-cycle critique of state-led capitalism
- India’s economic and political trajectory
- Geopolitics, populism and political risk
- Globalisation and the post-crisis world economy
Ideal for
- Boards and investment committees setting country and currency exposure
- CEOs and CFOs of multinationals reassessing emerging-market footprint
- Asset managers, pension funds and family offices on capital allocation
- Senior policy and strategy audiences in financial services
Audience outcomes
- A structured set of indicators for ranking countries on growth durability
- A read on which emerging markets are likely to break out and which are likely to stall
- A specific, contestable argument on how state expansion is shaping returns in developed markets
- A political-risk perspective on India and the wider EM landscape grounded in on-the-ground reporting
- A clearer view of the macro-economic regime shift facing capital allocators