Professor Desai's areas of expertise include tax policy, international finance, and corporate finance. He has taught extensively as an award-winning teacher at HBS and at Harvard University. His academic publications have appeared in leading economics, finance, and law journals. He has also written for practitioners in the Harvard Business Review on the role of the Global CFO. His work has emphasized the appropriate design of tax policy in a globalized setting, the links between corporate governance and taxation, and the internal capital markets of multinational firms. His research has been cited in The Economist, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, and several other publications. He is a Research Associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research's Public Economics and Corporate Finance Programs.

Professor Desai received his PhD in political economy from Harvard University and his MBA as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School. His professional experiences include working at CS First Boston as well as McKinsey & Co. and advising a number of firms and governmental organizations.

He is the author of The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return and How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Understanding the Numbers. He is also the co-host of the HBR After Hours podcast.