Anand Srinivasan

Anand Srinivasan (Born: 13th May 1967) is an Economist and Politician.
Profile
Anand Srinivasan was born on 13 th May, 1967 in Chennai, India. He comes
from a respected family whose members have always been quiet contributors to
society. They have been leading lawyers, government officers, and his
grandfather was editor of a leading English newspaper, and renowned auditor.
His father was a mechanical engineer and his mother was an erudite academic
who studied Sanskirt at the University of Madras. He is the eldest child and has
two younger siblings.
From a young age he has always had a strong sense of community and national
spirit. In his early years he showed a remarkable capacity form reading and
assimilating information, something that has stood him in good stead all his life.
After finishing his schooling from DAV and Gill Adarsh in Chennai, he went
on to receive his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MS Ramaiah
College, Bangalore.

Coming from a family of free thinkers, entrepreneurship was in his blood.
Immediately after finishing his studies, he moved backed to Chennai in order to
setup his first venture: Kamakshi Associates, which was a trading company
primarily dealing with Godrej typewriters. His business quickly grew and
transformed, leading him to create Prakruthi Marketing Services, which traded
in IT products. He later started a financial division along with an insurance arm.

In the next ten years he became one of south India’s largest distributors and
traders. However, he soon suffered his first major set-back due to India’s market
turbulence at the time and so, he had to restructure his business and reinvent
himself. This was the time he discovered the works of Friedrich Hayek and
John Maynard Keynes. Using his prodigious memory and appetite for reading,
he rapidly consumed vast libraries of books ranging whose subjects ranged from
economics to political science to psychology and human behavior.
At the same time, he realized the power of market and investments through the works of
Warren Buffet and subsequently became a value investor.

He set about slowly building his portfolio in the equity market, while
maintaining a pragmatic approach to business and investment, leading him to
realize the true meaning of the Keynes quote: “The market can stay irrational
longer than you can stay solvent.” Yet, he was left unsatisfied as he wanted to
share this new-found knowledge and help others become better financial
planners. To him, that started with answering a few important questions: what is
the true essence of money? Where does it come from? And most importantly
how can you make your money grow?

From his interactions with friends and business partners, he realized that most
people were unaware of the simple fundamentals of investment and were taking
dangerous risks in the equity market without understanding its potential risks
and dangers. This is why he decided to write a book, which would help the
ordinary man better understand the dynamics of investing and equity markets.
He wrote his first book, “The Investor: Ordinary Stocks Extra Ordinary Profits”,
which was quickly followed up with his second book “Alchemy of Money”.
Both his books have been translated and have been widely reviewed as a
fundamental book that should be read by people who are investing in the equity
markets or planning to invest in equity, whether directly or through mutual
funds.

Around the same time, he started conducting seminars and workshops on
investing throughout India. It was during one of these seminars, leading media
companies started reaching out to him to appear on their platforms: both TV and
print in order to help their viewers understand market fundamentals.
Talking about the equity markets would also occasionally lead to him discussing the
Indian economy and the world economy in general.
This media exposure brought him to the attention of the Congress Party’s Tamil
Nadu State party. Since Anand’s political and economic views coincided with
that of the Indian National Congress Party, he was a natural fit for the party and became their
state spokesmen for Tamil Nadu.

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