MIA graduate Apala Bhattacharya is an economist who currently works at the World Bank as an infrastructure consultant.
In this Q&A feature, she talks about her career journey, and how being part of the LKY School community opened doors to new opportunities.
What inspired you to become an economist?
I was born in India, and grew up in developing countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka before moving to Singapore at age 10. As a child, I associated the bare roads and traffic of Delhi and Dhaka with industrial and economic growth. The first thing that struck me when I landed in Singapore was how green the city was, on the drive out from Singapore’s Changi Airport.
Over time, I wondered: How did some countries prosper while remaining environmentally sound? This question led me to study economics, and till today, the search for sustainable solutions motivates me to press on in this field.
What did you gain from studying at the LKY School?
It was at the LKY School where I learnt that my early impression of Singapore was no mere fluke — the pleasant drive into the city was a careful design by the country’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew to attract and impress potential investors.
I had considered several public policy schools, but chose to enrol in the LKY School for its unique Asian perspective. While I had studied the development of the “Asian Tigers” — Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan — I also wanted to delve deeper into the policies that had been implemented, and the lessons learnt. An added advantage of the LKY School was that I could learn extensively about the Singapore experience and its path to success.
My favourite class was International Economic Development, which took us through the macroeconomics and developmental policies of various Asian countries, and explored how these countries interact in the international economic system. We looked at significant events, such as the Asian currency crisis, and it helped me to understand how fiscal, monetary, industrial, and demographic policies interplay in an economy. It was a class in which I barely put my pen down!
Tell us about your current job.
[ALUMNI-INFO TEXT="I work at the World Bank, an international organisation that provides financing and advice to developing countries with the purpose of ending poverty and increasing shared prosperity. What I love most about my work is getting to learn on the job every day.
My division aims to improve the quality of infrastructure in our client countries, through recommending sound infrastructure policies, implementing investment programmes, and designing bankable projects. I primarily work on the Private Participation in Infrastructure database, which highlights the destination of infrastructure investment flows, the contractual structures used to attract private investment, and the trends seen over the years.
Some of my daily responsibilities include extensive research to find publicly sourced data on infrastructure projects, data analysis to cross check the team’s findings, number crunching to identify trends in infrastructure investments, and presenting the team’s findings in reports and infographics.
I actually got involved with the World Bank while I was still at the LKY School. A classmate working at the World Bank told me that a part-time position with my current team had opened up. My background in economics and my data skills gave me an edge, and I managed to secure the role."][/ALUMNI-INFO]
How has the LKY School experience been relevant to your work?
During my Global Governance module, my classmates and I worked with the Global Development Incubator (GDI), which launches start-ups focused on social impact.
[ALUMNI-QUOTES TEXT="We produced a report that projected the finance gap for small and medium enterprises in 160 frontier and emerging markets — access to finance is often a critical barrier to growth for these enterprises. Our report empirically explained the finance gap and recommended ways to address this, and we presented our findings to GDI and other key investors. This project allowed me to carry out development work, and I picked up valuable skills, such as market sizing techniques.
I also found the Essential Skills Workshop useful, specifically the classes on Programme Management. It was during these classes that I learnt to develop Theory of Change diagrams, which is relevant in my work to illustrate the manner in which we hope to effect change.
Yet another valuable experience was my capstone project, where I worked with GovInsider, a media platform created to help government officials tackle the big challenges of the next decade.
I first met GovInsider representatives at an Industry Night event organised by the LKY School, and later contacted them about doing my capstone research with them. My research involved interviewing 24 ASEAN city leaders and collecting data on “smart city” and digital economy plans, which helped me better understand the policy environment in the region, as well as the relationship between urbanisation, economic growth, and technology infrastructure."][/ALUMNI-QUOTES]
What’s ahead for you?
I hope to help developing countries to prosper sustainably, and I’m particularly interested in improving economic opportunities for women and minority groups. At the same time, I’m looking to grow personally, and I fully intend to be a lifelong learner.
