Bali attended IIT Kharagpur, Columbia engineering and business schools.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: A talented and brilliant Indian American academic and financial expert based in New York, Rakesh Bali, who was Principal, Risk Return Consulting LLC – located in Scarsdale for the last 15 years, reportedly committed suicide by jumping in front of a train last week, in Westchester County.
Bali, 48, is survived by his wife Laure, and two small children.
The Journal News, which covers the Lower Hudson Valley, New York, reported that Bali was killed after being struck by a train at the Hartsdale Metro-North station late Wednesday afternoon.
Bali was hit by a train at the Hartsdale station around 4:04 p.m. as it was traveling southbound from North White Plains to Grand Central Terminal, said MTA police Deputy Inspector Timothy Denmark.
The train that struck Bali was not carrying any passengers at the time, said Meredith Daniels, an MTA spokesperson. The incident occurred at the station’s platform, Daniels added.
The incident occurred at the station’s platform, Daniels said. She said that it appeared Bali leaped in front of the train. The police are investigating the case.
Bali graduated with a B.Tech. (Honors), Mechanical Engineering, from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1987. He thereafter attended the Columbia Engineering school in New York, and graduated with an MS degree in Operations Research, in 1989. Bali enrolled immediately after that for a doctorate program in finance at the Columbia Business School. He earned his Ph.D. in 1995. He worked as a faculty member at Columbia University for a while.
Bali’s works has been published in numerous practitioner and academic journals and has received hundreds of citations.
Speaking over the phone to The American Bazaar, Bali’s wife, Laure, was distraught, and wanted the world to know that her husband was “a brilliant man who will be missed very, very much.”
“What has happened has happened, I will just miss him,” Laure, said, breaking down in tears.
The death of Bali comes close on the heels of the death of junior banker at Goldman Sachs, Sarvshresth Gupta.
Gupta, who like Bali, also had a high profile academic resume and a path to a brilliant future on Wall Street and the world of finance, committed suicide, unable to cope with the stress related to his job.
Read that story here:
It’s not known what led Bali to commit suicide, if indeed that was the case.
What is known is that like Gupta, Bali too has left behind families on two continents who are heart broken, inconsolable and in deep anguish. It’s an untimely death that people cannot reconcile with.