Mr. Deepak Sanan joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1982 and retired in 2017. He was allotted the Himachal Pradesh cadre and, over the course of his distinguished career, held several senior positions in both the Government of India and the Government of Himachal Pradesh. He has also served as a consultant to several international development organisations and worked with the World Bank.

Mr. Sanan is currently a Director at Landstack, a start-up working in the field of land governance, where his primary responsibilities include research and capacity building. Following his retirement, he has been associated with the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi, and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi.

At IIHS, Mr. Sanan led the establishment of the Centre for Land Governance and served as its founding Head. At NCAER, he led the development and publication of the Land Records and Services Index, covering all States and Union Territories of India in 2020 and 2021. At CPR, he advised on issues relating to state capacity. His broader areas of interest in public policy include public finance, energy, water, sanitation, and land governance.

Mr. Sanan is a regular speaker on land governance and public policy at leading academic and training institutions, including the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), the Indian School of Public Policy (ISPP), Kautilya School of Public Policy, Azim Premji University (APU), Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), the National Academy of Audit and Accounts (NAAA), and the Maharashtra State Human Rights and Public Administration Institute (MSHIPA), among others.

Mr. Sanan has published extensively on public policy through newspapers, academic journals, and edited volumes, contributing scholarly work across a broad range of governance and development issues.

He holds a Master of Arts in Politics (International Relations) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1979), and a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi (1977). In 1996, he was awarded the prestigious McNamara Fellowship by the World Bank.