Krishnan Dharmarajan heads the Centre for Digital Financial Inclusion (CDFI), Institute for Financial Management and Research as its Executive Director. The Centre aims to develop and scale digital payment innovations and digital financial products and platforms aimed at poor or otherwise excluded population segments. CDFI partners and supports various organizations, including Government agencies in India at the Central and State levels, in evolving program implementation frameworks that leverage technology to provide benefits to the poor. The emphasis has been on re-imagining service delivery to the poor around innovations in the financial space.

Prior to joining CDFI, Krishnan was Commissioner (Systems), CBEC, Govt of India where he worked on  conceptualization and establishment of the Goods and Services Tax Network. Krishnan also worked for five years at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India as Principal Consultant and Advisor for India’s National e-Governance Plan, where he was variously responsible for Program Monitoring, Strategic Planning, Capacity Building, Institutional Restructuring and Multilateral Funding for large e-governance programs.  This was preceded by 18 years of work spanning establishment of nation-wide indirect tax systems, telecom regulation, revenue administration and systems engineering.

Krishnan received Government’s commendation for development of a mobile banking framework for the unbanked in the year 2010. He is recipient of the President of India’s award for distinguished service in the year 2006. Krishnan took early retirement from the Indian Revenue Service in 2014. He is a Computer engineer and a post graduate in management.