Chitra Narayan is a lawyer and mediator with over 25 years of experience. Chitra mediates commercial, corporate, labor, and family (including property and matrimonial) disputes. She is an accredited mediator with the Tamil Nadu Mediation and Conciliation Centre, annexed to the Madras High Court since its inception in 2005. She is a founding Trustee of Foundation for Comprehensive Dispute Resolution (FCDR), Chennai, an initiative to mainstream mediation and provide mediation and conciliation services. Chitra is also a mediator at the Compliance Advisory Ombudsman of the World Bank Group.
In an effort to build the ecosystem for mediation in India, Chitra drafted a mediation law in India. She is now a member of a national committee of mediators working on a mediation legislation in India. She is a published editor of law books and a regular writer and speaker on mediation and alternative dispute resolution.
As a lawyer, Chitra has worked in corporate commercial law – both in transaction advisory and dispute resolution, which meaningfully support her work in arbitration, mediation, and conciliation. She has been a partner with leading law firms prior to setting up independent practice.
Chitra is a graduate of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore (1994), and has a Master’s in Law in Development from the University of Warwick, U.K., which she attended as a Chevening Scholar (1995). She is a Weinstein JAMS International Fellow (2017).
Chitra speaks English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada.
