Vaidyanathan is retired professor of finance at IIM, Bangalore. He is two times Fulbright scholar and a fellow of ICSSR-visiting faculty at various universities in the US/UK. He is also a part of the various committees set up by financial regulators like SEBI/RBI/IRDA/PFRDA. Currently, he is Cho S Ramaswamy chair professor in public policy at Sastra University.