Monika Halan is a trusted personal finance writer, speaker and author who helps families get their money decisions right. She is the founder of Dhan Chakra Financial Education and the best-selling author of Let’s Talk Money that is now available in Hindi, Marathi and Punjabi as well. She is an Adjunct Professor at Banasthali Vidyapeeth, Rajasthan. She is the Chairperson of Sebi’s Advisory Committee for Investor Protection and Education Fund.
She is a regular speaker on financial literacy, regulation, inclusion and consumer issues in retail finance. She has a Master’s in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and a second Master’s in Journalism Studies from College of Cardiff, University of Wales, UK. She has worked across various media organisations in India, including Mint, The Economic Times and The Indian Express, and was Editor Outlook Money. She has run four successful TV series around personal finance in NDTV, Zee and Bloomberg India.
Monika has public policy experience as Member of the Task Force set up by the Government of India to put in place the Financial Redressal Agency, Member on the Sebi Mutual Fund Advisory Committee from 2009 to 2021, Member on the Ministry of Finance Committee on Incentives (Bose Committee), and Advisor to Swarup Committee in 2009.
She has four published academic papers in the field of household finance.
The case of life insurance. Monika Halan and Renuka Sane, NIPFP Working Paper Series, 2017.
Monika Halan and Renuka Sane, Journal of Comparative Economics, 2017.
Monika Halan, Renuka Sane, Susan Thomas, Journal of Economic Policy Reform, 2014
Niyati Agrawal, Monami Dasgupta, Monika Halan, Misha Sharma, Madhu Srinivas, Dvara Research, 2021.
She was a Director on the Financial Planning Standards Board India and is a Member of the Editor’s Guild.
She is an author of the best-selling book Let’s Talk Money (Harper Collins, 2018). The Hindi translation Baat Paise Ki was released in 2020, Marathi and Punjabi in 2022. Her first book Seven Steps to Financial Freedom was published by Macmillan in 2005.
She was chosen as a Yale World Fellow in 2011 and was a Visiting Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany in 2022.
She is based in New Delhi and tweets at @monikahalan