Ram Sharan Mahat, a distinguished economist and senior political leader elected as a member of parliament and the Constituent Assembly from 1994 to 2017 has held the position of Minister of Finance for six times and the Minister of Foreign Affairs once, under four prime ministers of Nepal at varying durations. A leading architect of economic reforms in Nepal after 1990, as the Deputy Chair of the National Planning Commission (19911994), he was the principal author of Nepal's Eighth Plan (1992-1997) which ushered in major policy changes to steer the Nepali economy in a new liberal direction.

Dr. Mahat had also served briefly as a university teacher and as a development professional for nearly a decade at the United Nations Development Program in Kathmandu, New York, and in Pakistan with responsibility for the cross-border humanitarian programs in Afghanistan. He resigned from the UN job to join electoral politics in Nepal after the restoration of democracy in 1990. He has several publications to his credit including the acclaimed book In Defence of Democracy: Dynamics and Fault Lines of Nepal's Political Economy (2005), and Capital Market, Financial Flows and Industrial Finance in Nepal (1981).

Dr. Mahat, one of the senior leaders of the Nepali Congress, was steeped into democratic politics since his early student days as a dissident student leader imprisoned several times by the autocratic Panchayat regime. A Ph. D degree holder from the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune, India in 1979 and a Hubert Humphrey fellow (1987/88) in the American University in Washington DC, USA, he was the recipient of Francis Humphrey Award from USIA and Institute of International Education in 1999 for his unique leadership role in the public service of Nepal. During his stint as Finance Minister, Nepal was elected under his leadership the chairman of the IMF/World Bank Board of Governors for 1998/99. In 2016, he was the recipient of the prestigious Finance Minister of the Year Award from the Banker magazine of the Financial Times Group of London for his exemplary work in the aftermath of the 2015 Nepal earthquake and for pushing reforms in improving governance in the Ministry of Finance.