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 now as a part-time international development consultant, professor, senior fellow 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 Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Global Economic Governance Initiative at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. He has been Distinguished Visiting Professor. NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, India and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), Turkiye since 2025. He has also has been a Guest Lecturer at the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS), Krea University in India.

Prior to his retirement, Mr. Malhotra was UN Head (full-time Representative of the Secretary-General) for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam between January 2019 and August 2021. Earlier, he was UN Head and UNDP Representative in Malaysia (also covering Singapore and Brunei Darussalam), Turkey and Vietnam between 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 defined 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 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 from the geographic 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. In recognition of his lifetime commitment to making a better world, the United Nations International School, 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, editor or co-author of 6 books including lead author of UNDP’s “Making Global Trade Work for People” (Earthscan, 2003) and the editor of  “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).

Mr. Malhotra has also contributed to more than 11 additional books and more than 150 journal and other publications on global and regional geo-political and geo-economic issues, the United Nations, G-20, global trade, debt and finance, the multilateral system and development cooperation. Since his retirement Mr. Malhotra has written or done interviews for India’s Observer Research Foundation, the India International Center Quarterly Journal, Gateway House Indian Council on Global Relations, United Services Institute Journal, India Forum, The Citizen, the NALSAR University of Law Student Journal and CS Conversations The Bigger Picture, in India,  the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), Australia’s 360info “Research Reuters”, Global Resilience Publishing and Pipparan Books Cambridge, UK, the Voice of Vietnam (VoV) online newpaper and for various Vietnamese TV channels, among others in India and internationally.