Mr. Malhotra has had a rich 45-year career as a management consultant, in senior positions in international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as co-founder of a think-tank named Focus on the Global South, in the United Nations (UN) and since late 2021 as a part-time international development consultant, distinguished professor, senior fellow, public speaker and writer. 

After retiring from the UN, effective September 2021, he continues to provide high level development policy advice in India and internationally. Between June 2022- May 2025, Mr. Malhotra was a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Global Economic Governance Initiative at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, USA. From June 2025, he has been Distinguished Visiting Professor for Trade Policy and Sustainable Human Development at the NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad, India where he also gave the valedictory address on International Trade and Investment Law in January 2025. He was also a Guest Lecturer in 2024 at the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS) at Krea University, India.

Prior to his retirement, Mr. Malhotra was UN Resident Coordinator (UN Head and full-time Representative of the Secretary-General) for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam between January 2019 and August 2021. Earlier, he was UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Representative in Malaysia (also covering Singapore and Brunei Darussalam), Turkey and Vietnam (2008-2018) as well as UNDP Senior Adviser on Inclusive Globalization in New York for most of the previous decade.

Before joining UNDP, Mr. Malhotra was Co-Founder and Co-Director of Focus on the Global South, (1995-1999), a global policy research think-tank based at Chulalongkorn University’s Social Research Institute in Bangkok, Thailand. FOCUS was established both to critically analyze the interface between globalization, neo-liberalism and the real Global South and to influence paradigmatic and macro policy issues through its policy research, publications and by linking social movements around the world and bringing their experiences and issues to the macro policy level. The Global South was and still is defined by FOCUS as encompassing all marginalized and disempowered peoples around the world, from Aboriginal Australians, the untouchables and Dalits of India to the African American and native populations of the Americas.

Immediately before co-establishing FOCUS, Mr. Malhotra served as Director of the Overseas and Aboriginal Program of Oxfam Australia (1988-1995) and was the only founder member of Oxfam International in 1995 from the Global South.

Mr. Malhotra holds an MIPA from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University, USA (1982), a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management (1978), and a BA in Economics from the University of Delhi (1976). Mr. Malhotra also completed an Executive Education Program at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA on “Leadership for the 21st Century: Chaos, Conflict and Courage” (2013). 

He has received many prestigious awards over five decades, including the President of Vietnam’s Order of Friendship in 2021, its highest award for a foreigner. In recognition of his lifetime commitment to making a better world, the United Nations International School in Hanoi, Vietnam dedicated its Sustainability Center in his name in May 2022. Mr. Malhotra was also recognized in Marques’ Who’s Who in the World in 2000.

Mr. Malhotra is widely published. He has been the initiator, lead, or co-author of 6 books including lead author of UNDP’s “Making Global Trade Work for People” (Earthscan, 2003) and “Globalization and the Least Developed Countries” (UNDP, in cooperation with the UN-OHRLLS and the Government of Turkey, 2008). He also initiated and led “Virtuous Cycles: The Singapore Public Service and National Development” (UNDP, 2011). He is currently under Penguin Random House India contract to write a book tentatively titled “The Real Global South: Pitfalls of Exclusionary Globalization” (forthcoming, 2026).

 In addition to these books, Mr. Malhotra has also contributed to over 10 additional books and authored more than 125 journal and other publications on global and regional geopolitical and geo-economic issues, the United Nations, the G-20, global trade, debt and finance, the multilateral system and development cooperation. 

Since his retirement, Mr. Malhotra has written for India’s Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the India International Center (IIC) Quarterly Journal, Gateway House Indian Council on Global Relations and the Monash University/Australian National University based “Research Reuters,” 360Info. Mr. Malhotra has been a regular monthly contributor to publications for Pippa Rann Books and Media and Global Resilience Publishing (an imprint of Salt Desert Media Group Ltd.) in the United Kingdom as well as Cross Section Conversations: The Bigger Picture in India magazine since 2024. He also contributes to newspapers and other online publications, both in India and internationally. Some of his recent contributions are available on YouTube.