Born on February 20, 1950, Mrs. Thorat has a Master's degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics. She joined the Reserve Bank in April 1972. During her career in the RBI spanning 38 years, she has had a stint in virtually each and every area of central banking. Besides banking regulation/supervision, rural/urban cooperative banking, deposit insurance and currency management, she has rich experience in the areas of foreign exchange and reserves management, debt management of central and state governments, development and regulation of money, forex and government securities markets, rural planning and credit, cooperative banking, customer service and grievance redressal, and payment and settlement systems. She was also the Appellate Authority under the Right to Information Act, 2005 as well as under the Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006. She has played a key role in training and capacity building, both in the RBI and banks, as Chairperson of the College of Agricultural Banking and the Reserve Bank’s Staff College, besides serving as a Member of Faculty at the latter. 

Prior to her elevation as Deputy Governor, Mrs. Thorat was the Executive Director of the Reserve Bank (since April 2003). As Executive Director, she represented RBI on the BIS Committee on Global Financial Systems (CGFS). She had also served as a member on the CPSS-IOSCO Task Force on Securities Settlement Systems (1999-2001). After a distinguished service of nearly four decades with the Reserve Bank of India, Mrs. Usha Thorat retired in November 2010 as its Deputy Governor, a post which she held for five years. The other important positions held by Ms. Thorat during her tenure as Deputy Governor included Member on the Board of Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Chairperson of the Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited, Chairperson of the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (2005-09) and Director on the Board of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (2005 – 09). 

She is presently serving as Director of the Centre for Advanced Financial Research and Learning (CAFRAL) in January 2011. CAFRAL is promoted by Reserve Bank of India as a centre of excellence for research and learning in the field of banking and finance.