Arti Ahuja

Residency Dates: April 24–29, 2026

Arti Ahuja is a retired Indian Administrative Service officer from the 1990 Odisha cadre with a distinguished career in public service spanning over three decades. She has held several high-level positions in both central and state governments, demonstrating profound expertise in policy framing, social security, public health and skills development.

As the union secretary for the Ministry of Labor and Employment, Ahuja focused on strengthening social security and addressing skill gaps for India’s workforce. She spearheaded initiatives to provide agency to 300 million unorganized sector workers through the e-Shram portal, linking them to skill-building, entrepreneurship and job search opportunities.

On the international stage, she successfully represented India in the International Labor Organization’s governing body and chaired the organization’s Asia-Pacific conference, and she was a key negotiator for the country as a member of BRICS. A significant achievement during her tenure was chairing the G20 Employment Working Group during India’s presidency, during which she led intense negotiations to secure systemic agreements on financing social security for gig and platform workers and creating a global mapping of skills and occupations.

Ahuja holds a master in public policy from Princeton University, where she was a World Bank Robert S. McNamara Fellow, and a master of public health from Harvard University, where she received a Harvard Presidential Fellowship.

She has held various positions nationally and internationally, and she was a member of the Independent Expert Group of the Global Nutrition Report; a senior honorary research associate at the Institute for Global Health, University College London; and a member of the Harvard School of Public Health’s advisory committee for malaria eradication, among others. Currently she advises or is on the board of various national and multilateral organizations and is a member of the international advisory committee for the Gender, Climate Change and Nutrition Integration Initiative as well as faculty of the flagship program of the Harvard School of Public Health on health system reform. She is also a special monitor for the National Human Rights Commission on matters relating to business and human rights.