Richard Rossow

Richard Rossow, Managing Director, leads our India & South Asia practice.

He is also the Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In this role, he focuses on shaping US economic engagement with India, India’s reform process, and tracks India’s state-level political economies.

Mr. Rossow has been a leader in the private sector efforts to increase market access, resolve investor disputes, and take advantage of new business opportunities in India since 1998.

From 1998 until 2008, Mr. Rossow served as Director of Operations at the US-India Business Council (USIBC), the world’s leading advocacy group on behalf of strengthening economic ties between the US and India. While at USIBC he managed the Council’s policy groups on the energy, information technology, insurance, media and entertainment, and telecommunications sectors. During Mr. Rossow’s ten-year tenure, he spent an average of two months each year in India, leading trade missions, conducting conferences, and meeting with representatives of the leading US and Indian companies doing business in the region. He was instrumental in growing the USIBC from 4 staff to 16 and successfully opened new offices for the Council in New York, San Francisco, and New Delhi. He developed particular expertise in the areas of Indian data privacy laws, cyber security laws, energy contract disputes, television regulations and in the tax treatment of BPO services based in India.

From 2008 until 2012, Mr. Rossow was with New York Life Insurance company, most recently as the Head of International Governmental Affairs, where he developed strategic plans for the company’s global M&A work and sought to influence regulations in the company’s overseas markets, especially India. While charged with covering a much larger area of the world, much of Mr. Rossow’s work at New York Life revolved around India, including pushing for an increase in the FDI cap in insurance and setting up a full-fledged government affairs unit at Max New York Life in India.

While at New York Life, Mr. Rossow was chosen by his industry peers to lead the India-related work of their key industry associations, including: Chairman of the American Council of Life Insurers’ India Committee; Chairman of the US-India Business Council Insurance & Pensions Executive Committee; and Chairman of the Coalition of Service Industries India Committee.

Mr. Rossow received his BA from Grand Valley State University.