After a lengthy Senate confirmation process spanning almost two years, Indian American investor Sunil Sabharwal was sworn in as Alternative Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund, and took office Mar. 2.
In a statement released by the U.S. Indian American Political Action Committee Mar. 3, Sabharwal said: “I am really looking forward to joining the IMF in this important role.”
Sabharwal – who was born in New Delhi but raised in Budapest by his Hungarian mother – praised USINPAC and its chairman Sanjay Puri, and noted that the organization had “mobilized support across state and constituency lines within the Indian American community.”
“I am touched by their pro-active engagement, am proud to serve as one of them,” he said.
President Barack Obama first nominated Sabharwal to the post in April 2014. His Senate confirmation hearing was set for a month later, but was held up. Obama again nominated Sabharwal to the post in March 2015. He was finally confirmed last month when Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, withdrew his block on Senate confirmations.
The 53-year-old Sabharwal and his mother left India when he was nine. His mother, Gabriella Bessenyey, struggled to raise the family in Communist Hungary, according to PIO Times. When Bessenyey tried to sell pottery to feed her family, the government would not grant her a license.
In 1983, the family left Hungary and fled to Austria. They asked for political asylum at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna and arrived in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1983. Sabharwal, son of Baldev Raj Sabharwal, a printing entrepreneur who founded the New Roxy Press in New Delhi, enrolled at Ohio State University the following year, and majored in business administration. He also learned to fence and later went on to serve as chief of mission to the U.S. Olympic Fencing team at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Sabharwal also attended the London Business School and the UK’s Institute of Directors. He returned to post-Communist Hungary in 1992 and was instrumental in setting up the Budapest office of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, according to USINPAC. He later joined the EBRD’s Financial Institutions team in London.
Sabharwal spent 10 years in private equity and mergers and acquisitions at GE Capital and First Data/Western Union, and completed numerous investments and sat on several boards. From 2011 to 2013, Sabharwal served as chairman of the Board of Ogone, a Brussels-based European e-commerce payment services company during which period he also launched the company’s U.S. and Indian operations.
Source: India West