Biography
Vandana Vasudevan is an urban development scholar, author and columnist whose work spans digital platforms, inclusive urban mobility and the transformation of emerging urban regions. Her research and writing are grounded in fieldwork across diverse contexts — from interviews with working women in Grenoble, Jalandhar and Tiruchirappalli during her doctoral research, to conversations with gig workers, sellers and consumers across South Asia for OTP Please.
Trained in management at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and holding a Ph.D. in Urban Studies from Université Grenoble Alpes, France, she brings together close, on-the-ground research with institutional understanding. Before moving into academia and policy, she built and ran business units in the corporate sector, holding leadership roles at HT Media, ICICI Bank and Standard Chartered Bank. This experience informs her understanding of how organisations function and how economic systems shape everyday life.
As a policy professional, she has undertaken consulting and research engagements with the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, Microsoft Research, IFC and the University of Bordeaux. She has also held Visiting Fellow positions at the World Resources Institute India and the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP).
Vandana is the author of three non-fiction books, including Urban Villager: Life in an Indian Satellite Town and OTP Please! Online Buyers, Sellers and Gig Workers. She has written extensively for leading Indian publications and was a columnist with Mint and DNA for five years. Her writing combines clear analysis with storytelling, bringing readers into the everyday realities behind larger economic and urban shifts. She speaks at literary festivals, universities and public forums on digital platforms, urban change and the future of work in India.
Raised between Mumbai and Delhi in a Tamil household, with close ties to Chennai and Tiruchirappalli, and later living in Ahmedabad, the NCR and Grenoble, her perspective reflects lived experience across regions, languages and professional contexts. She now lives in Hyderabad.