US President Joe Biden has nominated two Indian-Americans- Vinay Singh and Kalpana Kotagal- to key administration positions.
Vinay Singh has been nominated as Chief Financial Officer, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Kalpana Kotagal is the nominee for Commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Singh, a Certified Public Accountant, is a senior advisor to the Administrator at the US Small Business Administration (SBA), assisting agency teams in delivering organisational efficiencies to serve our communities’ small businesses better. Singh has 25 years of private-sector leadership experience with a deep understanding of finance, analytics and strategy.
Singh, who served in the Obama-Biden administration as a Deputy Assistant Secretary (US Field), had played a key role in leading trade and investment policy and promotion efforts to better market conditions for US companies.
Before his role at SBA, Singh was a Partner and Chief Operating Officer for Infrastructure Practice at KPMG in India. According to the White House, as a senior executive team member, Singh led several organisational transformation projects, leveraging technology to improve profitability and decision-making.
“As lead partner for the World Bank Group account, he supported global sustainability projects focused on solving urban and rural challenges in housing, water, energy, and economic development”, it added.
Kotagal, the daughter of immigrants from India, is a partner at Cohen Milstein, a member of the firm’s Civil Rights & Employment practise group and co-chair of the firm’s Hiring and Diversity Committee. She is co-author of the seminal legal template ‘Inclusion Rider’.
Kotagal, a diversity, equity, and inclusion expert, has been representing the disenfranchised people in employment and civil rights litigation involving issues related to Title VII, Equal Pay Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Fair Labour Standards Act, the White House said.
