Ms. Neha
Fellow, Environment Education and Awareness Area,
TERI

Ms. Neha has more than seventeen years of experience in environmental management and outreach activities with expertise in water resources, waste, energy, environment law, and climate change. Her work largely focuses on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). She is also actively involved in cutting-edge research on ESD and has authored books for organizations, such as UNESCO, the MoP, POSOCO, Tata Steel Limited. She has not only written for students and teachers, but has also developed other IEC materials for corporates, multilaterals, government and rural and urban communities. A multi-faceted professional, she also develops games and online training modules to reach out to multiple target groups in ESD domains.  
 

Mr. Chinmaya Kumar Acharya
Chief Executive Officer (Interim),
Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation

Chinmaya Acharya is the Interim CEO at the Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation (Shakti). In this role, he leads the organisation’s efforts to support design and implementation of largescale clean energy and environment solutions. He works with his team to identify priority intervention areas, design and manage meaningful activities, and forge partnerships with sponsor agencies and implementing partners for smooth implementation.

Dr. O P Agarwal
India Country Director,
World Resources Institute

Dr. O.P. Agarwal is currently the India Country Director of the World Resources Institute and the CEO of its Indian arm, known as WRI India. He was a member of the IAS from 1979 to 2007 and was allocated to the Assam cadre. He held several positions, both under the central government and the Government of Assam. Among them were Joint Secretary in charge of Urban Transport in the Ministry of Urban Development and Secretary for Transport in Assam. He was the principal author of the National Urban Transport Policy for the country, which was adopted in 2006 and has remained the key document guiding urban transport investments since then.  
 
He has worked in the World Bank for 6 years as its global Urban Transport Adviser in Washington DC. He has been with the World Resources Institute since June 2017.  
 
He has written several papers on urban transport policy and governance issues. His recent book entitled “Emerging Paradigms in Urban Mobility Planning, Financing and Implementation” was published by Elsevier.  
 
He has a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, a Master’s degree in Transportation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. 

Mr. Rajiv Agarwal
Head of Public Policy for Uber India and South Asia,
Uber

Rajiv Agarwal is the Head of Policy for Uber India and South Asia. Prior to joining Uber as Head of Public Policy for India and South Asia, Mr Rajiv Aggarwal had worked from grassroots to the global level as an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer. This included being a District Magistrate in 9 districts across Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India. Amongst a host of policy initiatives, he steered India's first-ever national policy on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and was the lead negotiator with other nations on IPRs for the Government of India. He has to his credit the establishment of new organisations, like the Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation (as its first MD). He has also functioned as the chief executive of several organisations with annual budgets exceeding INR 10,000 million.

Mr. Rainer Agster
Director of Operations,
SEED

Rainer Agster is the Director of Operations at SEED and oversees all operations within SEED's Hosting Partner adelphi research, providing input to the strategic development of SEED. Rainer joined adelphi in 2002 as a Senior Project Manager and is now adelphi's Director of Private Sector Cooperation. His focus is on social and environmental entrepreneurship, energy efficiency, green finance and climate change adaptation. Rainer has experience in the development, implementation and evaluation of sustainable development projects for national and international clients (EuropeAID, DG Energy and Transport, DG Education and Culture, UNFCCC, UNEP as well as Austrian, Chinese, German and Indian ministries, GIZ and KfW). Rainer graduated from the University of Applied Science Bremen in an International Study Programme for Environmental Engineering and has a Masters degree in Business Administration with a focus on sustainability management from the University of Leuphana in Lueneburg. He also studied one year at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. 

Mr. Kengo Akamine
Senior Representative,
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) India

Mr. Akamine joined the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in 2005 and engaged in operations for India for 2.5 years. He has also been a representative in JICA Peru Office from 2011 to 2015, in charge of the water sector. He is deputed to Cabinet Secretariat, Government of Japan from 2015 to 2017, for promoting export of Japanese infrastructure.  
 
Currently, he serves as the Senior Representative in JICA Office, in charge of operations in water, energy, and agriculture sectors. 

Mr. Dan Alluf
Counsellor- International Cooperation,
Embassy of Israel

Counsellor MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation, Embassy of Israel in India.
Dan has gained 16 years of Managerial Experience in International Agricultural arena, in both Public and Private sectors.
Currently Leading the Indo-Israel Agricultural Project, addressing the full value chain of key crops, The IIAP’s aims at benefiting farmers, Executing Training and capacity building programs to achieve sustainable impact for the long run.
Dan is holding a Master’s degree of Business Administration (Technion institute) and a B.Sc.
graduate in Plant Science, Agriculture Economy & marketing (Hebrew university).
Dan is Expertizing in Water management, Drip Irrigation agro-technology in both Horticulture & open field Crops in global markets (India, EU, Turkey, CIS, and Sub-Sahara Africa & Israel).

Mr. Atul Arya
HEAD-ENERGY SYSTEM DIVISION,
PANASONIC INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED

Mr. A K Asthana
Senior Technical Spcialist,
GIZ

HE Mr. Ugo Astuto
Ambassador of the European Union to India,
Delegation of the European Union to India

He entered the Italian Diplomatic Service in 1991. His career in the Italian Foreign Service spans experience in the Embassies in Nairobi and London (including as alternate Director for Italy in the EBRD-European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), in the Permanent Representation in Brussels and in the Embassy in Delhi (2008-2012), where he served as Deputy Head of Mission. From February 2013 until July 2016 he was seconded to the European External Action Service (EEAS) in Brussels, first as Director for South and South East Asia and then as Deputy Managing Director/Director for Asia and the Pacific. From July 2016 to September 2019 he was the Principal Director for Asia in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome. 
 

Dr. Chandrasekhar Atla
Principal Engineer,
PRDC

He received his B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, INDIA, in 2003; M.Tech degree from National Institute of Technology-Karnataka, INDIA, in 2008; his Ph.D. from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Karnataka, INDIA, in 2017. He is associated with PRDC from last 12 years. He is the Member of IEEE and IEEE-PES ExeCom. He published 25 publications in international and national conferences and journals. He has executed and guided about 10 M.Tech projects and currently three students are doing PhD. His areas of interest are: Electric Vehicles and its impacts on grid, Battery Energy Storage System and its services to grid, Power system operation, Power system planning, Large scale renewable integration and its impacts, Energy Management Systems, Hydro-Thermal Coordination, Wind, Solar and Load Forecasting, Insulation coordination, EMTP studies. 
 
 

Dr. Surendra Babu
Deputy General Manager,
NABARD

I have been gradated in Agriculture and Animal Husbandry disciplines from GB Pant University of Agricultural Science and Technology, Pantnagar (Nainital) UP, during 1987. There after joined India’s premier Agricultural Science Institute, the Indian Agriculture Research Institute New Delhi and successfully completed Post Graduate (MSc) and Doctorate (PhD) in Horticulture with specialisation in Floriculture and Landscaping during the years 1989 and 1993 respectively. As a professional and developmental banker, my services in NABARD started during 1992. Keeping the professional approach to Agriculture and rural development, I could contribute effectively towards the project financing in sustainable Natural Resource Management and appraisal and monitoring of climate change projects in order to  create resilience amongst the vulnerable communities. NABARD’s goal towards commitment to the rural prosperity has been effectively addressed through my action by imparting technical knowhow amongst the stakeholders in the field of Horticulture and Natural Resource Management activities. Besides, I have also played effective role in holistic development of tribal communities using the watershed management approach. Collectivisation and marketing of Agri produce is a major challenge of small and marginal farmers in India. In this connection, my contribution towards Capacity building and strengthening of Farmers Producers Organisations has been well recognised.

Dr. Hemant Kumar Badola
Former Advisor to Chief Minister, Govt of Sikkim on Biodiversity, Climate Change & Green Think Tank Facilitator, and Ex Scientist G,
Freelance Expert (Biodiversity Conservation & Climate Change)

Dr. Hemant Kumar Badola is the former Advisor (Biodiversity, Climate-Change & Green Think Tank Facilitator) to the Chief Minister’s Office, Government of Sikkim, India. He served as Scientist G and Scientist-in-charge at G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment & Sustainable Development (Sikkim).  
 
In his thirty-nine years of research and professional experience along north-western and north-eastern Himalayas, and Uttarakhand, he has led international Transboundarylandscape programmes (Khangchendzonga Landscape Conservation & Development Initiative (KLCDI), India along Bhutan-Nepal) from 2013 to 2017. He has also been the Nodal Person to Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve (KBR) and Manas Biosphere Reserve (MBR) from 2006 to 2017. As a scientist, he conducted research in Protected Areas, transboundary landscapes, Bio-culture, climate-change, and policies in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim from 1993 to 2017. He was the lead author of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) nomination dossier which led to the inclusion of Khangchendzonga in the world network of Biosphere Reserves in July, 2018. He also coauthored the nomination document for UNESCO MBR Programme and contributed substantially to UNESCO ‘World Heritage Site (2016)’ – Khangchendzonga National Park dossier. 
 
He was a member of the team constituted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India in 2016. The team assessed Loktak Lake’s socioecological status in Manipur. He has also led an international Working Group in writing ‘Sikkim Biodiversity Action Plan 2012ʼ.  
 
His expertise lies in advisories, including climate-policies and habitat-assessment in hydropower projects. He has studied biodiversity elements, habitats, timberlines and climate change, bio-resources, bio-culture, indigenous knowledge, ecology of pheasants, ecotourism, phenology, and wetlands. His research has been disseminated widely to the society. He has published over 100 research papers, six books, 20 policy documents/monographs, 20 technical reports, 50 popular/miscellaneous articles. He has been the Chairperson, Keynote Speaker or Resource Person for over 250 national as well as international events and is a member of many reputed forums globally. He has organized or convened over 50 professional events. He has travelled across the world delivering more than 500 popular talks. 

Mr. Atul Bagai
Country Head,
United Nations Environment Programme

Mr. Atul Bagai joined UN Environment’s Ozone Action programme under the Montreal Protocol as the Regional Officer for South Asia in 2000 and served as Senior Regional Coordinator to build the capacity of subregional networks in Asia and enable them to meet the compliance targets under the Montreal Protocol. In that capacity, he spearheaded and led some innovative initiatives with the Executive Committee of the Multilateral Fund. For instance, he was instrumental in designing and developing synergies between Ozone Depleting Substance phase out and climate change in Maldives and Bhutan; green procurement policies in Mongolia taking into account phase-out of Ozone Depleting Substance as a legislation; a study of carbon credits and Ozone Depleting Substance destruction in Nepal; and, most recently, the hydro-chloro-fluoro-carbon phase-out plan for India that included energy efficiency and the cold chain.

Prior to joining UN Environment, Atul worked with the Government of India for 17 years in a number of senior positions such as Chief of Staff to two Ministers at the federal level (Ministry of Finance and Ministry of External Affairs) and to a Chief Minister at the provincial level. He also served as the Ozone Cell Director at the Ministry of Environment and Forests. Mr. Bagai, an Indian national, holds a Post-Graduate degree in History from the University of Delhi.

Mr. Deepak Bagla
Managing Director & CEO,
Invest India

Deepak Bagla has a professional career of over three decades, starting with the World Bank in Washington DC. In 1989 he joined Citibank Global Corporate and Investment Banking team and held several responsibilities across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. In 2007 he joined Private Equity to start an India dedicated fund for core infrastructure.

Mr. Bagla is currently Managing Director & CEO of Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency promoted by the Government of India. Invest India is also the execution agency for Government of India’s Start-up initiative.

He is a special invitee on the official Bilateral CEO’s Forum and a member of the Venture

Capital Investment Committee of the US $ 1.5 billion “Fund of Funds for Start-ups” established under the Prime Minister’s Startup India action plan. He is also a member of the Ministry of Finance steering Committee on Fintech and a Member of the High-Level committee of the Atal Innovation Mission responsible for establishing and scaling up incubators and tinkering labs across India.

He was a special invitee to the Government of India’s, “High Level Committee on Financing Infrastructure” – (2011- 2013), member of the Banking & Finance Committee of the Bureau of Indian Standards (ISO affiliate 2005-06) and a member of the committee established by the Government to recommend corporate governance norms for independent directors (2006). He was elected President of Delhi Management Association (2008-09).

Mr Bagla has a Bachelor’s degree with Honors in Economics from St Stephens College, New Delhi and a dual Masters in International Diplomacy and International Trade and Finance from The School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Mr. Abhay Bakre
Director General,
Bureau of Energy Efficiency

Mr. Abhay Bakre is a Post Graduate (M. Tech.) in Electrical Engineering from IIT, Kharagpur.  He belongs to 1988 Batch of Indian Railways Electrical Engineering Services, Ministry of Railways. He has worked in several Railway projects including Delhi Metro & Kolkata Metro extension projects.  
 
He has also worked as Joint Development Commissioner in the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and was Nodal officer for National Manufacturing Competitiveness Programme. As ED PCRA, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, he has been instrumental in development and implementation of various programs aimed at petroleum & energy conservation in industry, transport, domestic sector, etc. 
 
He has also taken up nationwide mass media campaign through PCRA and other oil companies to generate awareness among consumers on adoption of simple fuel saving measures in day to-day life. 
 
Before joining BEE, he has worked as Executive Director in the newly created Environment Directorate of Ministry of Railways. He was the nodal officer for developing INDC for the Railway sector along with a roadmap for Green House Gas reduction in Indian Railways. He also participated at the transport sector events of COP 21 held in Paris and COP 22 held in Morocco. 

Dr. Malini Balakrishnan
Senior Fellow,
TERI

Malini is a Senior Fellow at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) and an adjunct faculty at TERI School of Advanced Studies, both located in New Delhi, India. She has a doctorate in biochemical engineering, with masters and bachelors degrees in chemical engineering. Malini has over twenty years of experience in innovating as well as assessing technology solutions in different sectors of the industry. Her work focuses on evolving affordable solutions to specific challenges of inefficient resource use and waste faced by industries, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in developing countries.  These industry oriented actions address different aspects viz. improving resource efficiency (i.e. reducing the use of energy, water and materials) in existing production processes; technology demonstrations for process upgradation; research, development, demonstration and commercialization of value added products from industrial wastes. She has worked extensively in partnership with various international research groups and directed many multi-institutional international projects including several funded by the European Commission. 
 

Dr. Siddarthan Balasubramania
Senior Adviser- Strategy,
ClimateWorks Foundation

In this position, Siddarthan supports ClimateWorks and several other Foundations who are committed to deploy philanthropic resources to India to advance India’s development goals, particularly related to clean energy and climate change. In this cross-cutting role, Siddarthan helps developing compelling ideas, common strategies around those ideas and identifying partners on the ground to implement programs and projects. Siddarthan also supports India Climate Collaborative (ICC), the first ever platform for Indian domestic foundations to collaborate on climate change (both on strategy and as a connector to international foundations). His two immediate previous roles include India Country Head of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), an inter-governmental organization with 30 Member Countries,  and Director of the Major Economies Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI) in Washington DC. He also had two stints with the UK Government working in the Department for International Development (DFID) and later with UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (UK FCO), focusing on climate change, energy, environment and natural resource management. His other experience includes Senior Advisor in Norwegian NORAD where he spent 6 years promoting and deepening bilateral relationship between India and Norway in the areas of climate change, energy and environment.

Mr. Anirban Banerjee
Teacher,
Tata DAV Public School

Mr Anirban Banerjee from Tata DAV Public School, Chainpur is of 31 years of age, has completed his Master of Arts (M.A.) in English and Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) at the age of 25. Mr. Banerjee has been teaching the English for the past seven years. He has also been associated with ‘The Green School Project’ from the beginning of phase I as the co-coordinating teacher from his school who actively takes part in all the activities of the project to date.

Ms. Frances Beinecke
President Emerita,
Natural Resources Defense Council

Frances Beinecke served as NRDC’s president from 2006 to 2015. Under Beinecke’s leadership, NRDC focused on finding solutions to some of the biggest environmental challenges of our time, including establishing a clean energy future that curbs climate change, reviving the world’s oceans, defending endangered wildlife and wild places, protecting our health by preventing pollution, fostering sustainable communities, and ensuring safe and sufficient water. Prior to her role as NRDC president, Beinecke was the organization’s executive director for eight years. 

In 2010, Ms. Beinecke was appointed by President Obama to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. She has been a member the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board (SEAB) under Secretary Chu and Moniz; the Advisory Board of the MIT Energy Initiative, and the boards of World Resources Institute (WRI), the NRDC Action Fund, Climate Central and Client Earth. In 2016 she was the McCluskey Fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.    

Mr. Suman K Bery
Non-Resident Fellow,
Bruegel

Mr Bery, based in New Delhi, is a Non-resident Fellow of Bruegel, an economic policy research institution located in Brussels. In addition to his affiliation with Bruegel, Mr Bery is a Global Fellow of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and is on the Board of the Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, New Delhi. He recently held a Public Policy Fellowship in the Asia program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.

For four years, (until mid-2016) Mr Bery was Chief Economist of Shell International, based in The Hague (The Netherlands). He led a team which advised the Board and senior management of Royal Dutch Shell on global economic and political developments and their impact on energy markets at a time of uncertainty for the global economy. He was part of the senior leadership of Shell’s global scenarios group, exploring pathways that would allow the world to reconcile decent living with lower carbon. While with Shell he collaborated with Indian research institutions on scenarios for Indian energy policy. (Energizing India. Sage, 2017. New Delhi)

Mr Bery had earlier served as Director-General (Chief Executive) of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in New Delhi, an independent economic policy research institution of around 100 staff. Its importance in shaping economic discourse in India under his leadership was recognised by its selection as a funding beneficiary under the South Asia ‘Think Tank Initiative’ supported by a consortium of international foundations.

In his decade leading NCAER Mr Bery was at various times member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council; of India’s Statistical Commission; and of the Reserve Bank of India’s Technical Advisory Committee on Monetary Policy. Among other committee assignments he was a member of the 2008 Committee on Financial Sector Reform (Chair: Dr. Raghuram Rajan). He commented extensively in the media on economic issues, contributing a monthly column for a business newspaper.

Prior to NCAER, Mr Bery was with the World Bank in Washington DC which he joined through the Bank’s Young Professionals Program. His later work was focused on economic policy and development strategy in Latin America and the Caribbean, with country experience on Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru.

His professional writing includes contributions on the political economy of reform, financial sector and banking reform, and energy trends and policy. His graduate work in public policy was at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, following an undergraduate degree (in Philosophy, Politics and Economics) from the University of Oxford completed with First Class Honours.

Mr. Pankaj Bhatia
Deputy Director,
WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE

Pankaj Bhatia is currently Deputy Director of Climate program and Director of the GHG Protocol Initiative at the World Resources Institute. Pankaj Bhatia has over eighteen years of experience in designing, convening, and leading publicprivate sector partnerships targeted at addressing major global environmental issues including climate change. In his current role as the director of GHG Protocol, Mr. Bhatia leads and manages a global partnership involving more than 2500 stakeholders that has produced seven major GHG protocol standards and tools for business and governments in areas including corporate, policy, goals, city, and supply chain. Presently he is leading a new global process to develop a global standard on land sector to account for business impacts from natural and physical carbon removal activities. In addition, Mr. Bhatia also serves as the Deputy Director of WRI’s Climate Program (CEP) that includes leading and managing Climate’s National Climate Action (NCA) initiative in major economies including China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Vietnam. NCA presently focuses on supporting major economies to develop and implement short and long-term mitigation targets, plans, and policies through the application of state of art economics & policy analysis tools. 
 
Prior to joining WRI in February 2001, Mr. Bhatia served at The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi from 1993 to 2001. At TERI Mr. Bhatia was involved in the implementation of the Montreal Protocol in India and development of environment policy for technology transfer and capacity building in Indian industry. From 1998 to 2000, he served as vice-president, TERI – NA, an affiliate of TERI, in Arlington, VA.  
 
He holds Masters in process engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Bachelors in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Banares Hindu University, Varanasi, India. 

Dr. J R Bhatt
Scientist G,
Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC)

Dr. J.R. Bhatt is Scientist ‘G’ at the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India (MoEFCC), where he handles scientific issues related to climate change including National Communications and Biennial Update Reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). He is also the National Focal Point of India for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Asia Pacific Network on Global Change. He has authored several books on issues related to biodiversity conservation, climate change, environment management and allied issues. 
 

Ms. Poonam Bir Kasturi
Founder,
Daily Dump

Poonam Bir Kasturi is a Founder of growing Waste Management firm Daily Dump, Bengaluru India. Daily Dump (PBK Waste Solutions Private Limited) works to redefine people’s perception of and relationship with the earth, each other and our urban spaces. It is the first company in India to design a home composter, adapted for tight urban spaces and with a unique terracotta design. In addition to designing and selling home and community composters and related products & services, Daily Dump also raises awareness about composting and reducing waste and spreads the joy of composting through workshops and sessions in schools & communities. 

Mr. Soumik Biswas
SENIOR CONSULTANT,
OXFORD POLICY MANAGEMENT LIMITED

Soumik Biswas is a Senior Consultant, Climate Finance Network with OPM. He has a Post Graduate Bachelor of Technology Degree in Chemical engineering, Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry. He has overall experience of more than 16 years. He has been working in the field of sustainability, climate change, carbon management and energy management as a project manager for climate change projects and various low-carbon strategy formulation for the last 13 years. Most recently he has been working in the role of State Team Leader, Odisha and Chhattisgarh for managing DFID-UK funded Climate Change Innovation Programme. His responsibilities included liaising with the Govt. of Odisha to influence and implement various climate change mitigation and adaptation actions, project structuring, project management, stakeholder expectation management and climate financing from national and international sources. He has prior work experience with organisations like World Bank, KfW Bankengruppe, UNIDO, Ethical Tea Partnership, DFID. In previous roles, he has been involved in more than 200 projects worldwide across varied sectors such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, waste handling and disposal, manufacturing, oil and gas, metal and metal mining, transport, fugitive emissions, petrochemicals etc.

Dr. Siva Prasad Bitragunta
Scientist,
Environment Protection Training and Research Institute (EPTRI)

Dr. B. Siva Prasad is presently working as a Scientist and Head, Biotechnology Division at Environment Protection Training and Research Institute (EPTRI), Hyderabad. He is also Faculty In-Charge, Academic Programs and a Project under National Adaptation for Fund for Climate Change, Govt. of India. NABET Accredited Functional Area Expert in Bio-Medical Waste Management. He was an invited Panel Member and Session Chair various international and national events including World Sustainable Development Summit (2019), All India Women Conference (AIWC)-2017 and International Conference on Solid Waste Management (ICONSWM)-2017. He completed Doctoral Research in Environmental Nanotoxicology from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani), Hyderabad Campus, India. He did his Post-Graduate studies in Environmental Biotechnology (University First Rank with Gold Medal) from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad. Has more than 15 years of experience in Academia and Research. Till date, published one book, three book chapters and 24 publications in various peer-reviewed journals and conferences of National & International repute. He is a recipient of Young Scientist Award-2015 from Society of Toxicology (STOX)-India, Best Abstract Award2014 and International Travel Award2016 from Association of Scientist of Indian Origin, Society of Toxicology (SOT), USA. He also received prestigious travel awards from International Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and SOT, USA. His interdisciplinary research interests include nanomaterial/ biomedical waste management, bioindicators of climate change, in vitro toxicology, integrating omics to delineate biomarkers for emerging contaminants in the environment including endocrine disruptors, metals and pesticides in various environmental compartments.

Mr. Shuvendu Bose
Senior Energy Specialist,
International Finance Corporation

Mr. Kundan Burnwal
Technical Advisor,
GIZ

Kundan Burnwal is climate change policy professional with more than twelve years of experience and an in-depth technical knowledge on development, implementation and evaluation of projects on climate change and carbon markets. He is currently working as a technical advisor at GIZ and as part of his current role he is working on climate policy, climate finance, e-waste and plastic management issues and leading the work on carbon markets and forestry. He has led the development of the first internationally approved REDD+ methodology from South Asian region, and several CDM projects. He has represented GIZ India at several national and international forums and has written extensively and in 2013 authored a book titled ‘Air Pollution Abatement through Trees and Subsequent Greenbelt Development’. Kundan has a Master’s degree in Environment Management from the Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun, India. 

Mr. Rajeev Chaba
President & Managing Director,
MG Motors

Rajeev Chaba is the President and Managing Director of MG Motor India, the India unit of the iconic Morris Garages brand. As one of the most renowned automotive experts with over three decades of industry experience, Mr Chaba has been instrumental in driving the MG brand in the country. In his role at MG Motor India, Mr Chaba has nurtured a strong, organisation-wide focus on technology as a key differentiator. Under his leadership, the marquee brand has successful introduced the Hector – its first India-centric product and the country’s first internet car – in the market. Coming equipped with a host of revolutionary, industry-first features, such as the next-generation iSMART technology and OTA updates, MG Hector has set a new benchmark for tech innovation in the Indian automotive space.

Over the course of his career, Mr Chaba has held various senior positions with top global automotive brands such as GM across multiple international markets. In 2005, he was the President & MD of GM in India. He has also served as the VP of Marketing & Sales at Shanghai-General Motors (SGM) in China and as the Chairman & MD for GM in North Africa & Egypt. Mr Chaba started his career with Eicher Motors in 1990 after completing his Masters’ degree from IIM Bangalore. Prior to joining MG Motor India, Mr Chaba’s most recent assignments include Global COO at Vanguard Logistics, USA, and Operating Partner at UK-based private equity firm ManCapital.

Mr. Subrata Chakrabarty
Manager, Climate,,
WRI India

Subrata is the Climate Manager for WRI India. He primarily works on the GHG Platform – India which aims at creating credible and accurate national GHG inventories based on IPCC methods. His role includes reviewing the methodology notes and GHG inventories for various sectors such as energy, waste, industry, AFOLU, etc. In addition, he also supports some activities of IGHGP – a flagship initiative by WRI India, such as promotion of GHG inventories, capacity building, tool development and managing GHG emissions for Indian corporate. 
Subrata previously worked as Consultant with environmental vertical of one of the India's leading infrastructure development and financial company and a large power sector conglomerate. He also worked as an GHG auditor (validation & verification) with one of the UNFCCC accredited Designated Operational Entity (DOE). He gained extensive experience in designing and auditing GHG abatement projects under thematic area of RE, EE, Waste handling & disposal under many voluntary and compliance market-based mechanisms. He also gained considerable experience in Stakeholders' engagements on areas such as financial viability and internal environmental policy compliance. 
Subrata holds master degree in Energy Systems from University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun, India. 
Subrata is enthusiastic about sports, specifically cricket. He also loves to play badminton, but cricket is always his passion. He represents many club level teams across Delhi NCR in on-going tournaments round the year. 

Mr. Subhash Chandra
IFS, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest,
Goa Forest Department

Mr. Subhash Chandra is a member of Indian Forest Service, currently posted as Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Government of Goa. Prior to this he has worked in the Forest Departments of Arunachal Pradesh and Delhi and served as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Mines. Mr Chandra has wide experience in Forest Policy, Natural Resources Management, Climate Change, Forest Rights related issue, Urban Greens Management, Mineral & Mining Policy and legal framework, Sustainable Mining etc. In MOEFCC, he worked on Forest Policy related matters as DIG Forests, Forest Policy and Forest Rights issues. He was also the National Focal Point for United Nations Forum on Forestry (UNFF) and the Committee on Forestry and Asia Pacific forestry Commission of FAO and was associated in preparation of International Arrangement on Forests 2015-2030. As Director, Horticulture, New Delhi Municipal Council during 2005-2010, he managed Urban Greens of Capital city of New Delhi. He developed first Tree Ambulance in the country for care of trees and set up the country’s first School of Gardening and Urban Greens Management for training in gardening and tree management. 
 
 

Dr. Ashish Chaturvedi
Director - Climate Adaptation & Climate Finance,
GIZ

Mr. Swayandipta Pal Chaudhuri
Managing Director & CEO,
Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited

Mr. Swayandipta Pal Chaudhuri is an Economist by training and Administrator having experience in the areas of economic growth, urban and regional development, public finance, poverty alleviation, innovation and public policy. He has been helping to create sustainable, equitable and economically vibrant cities and city-regions across several national as well as international assignments. In his current capacity as the Managing Director & CEO of Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL), the Smart City Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), he is entrusted with the responsibility of the implementation of the Smart Cities Mission in Panaji City under the aegis of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India. Additionally, Mr. Chaudhuri has been entrusted with the responsibility of implementation of AMRUT Mission in the State of Goa, as the Mission Director, for enhancement of quality of life of its citizens with special focus on providing basic services along with an emphasis on pedestrianisation and development of citizen centric infrastructure, ensuring universal access service for all. Recently he has conceptualised the idea of Creation of an Urban Living Lab that is poised to address the complex challenges of Urban Development in India integrating global sustainable solutions and local innovation and entrepreneurship. It will through pilot projects and demonstrations offer technical solutions and showcase best practices that can be replicated in contexts facing similar challenges and issues. The Urban Living Lab is conceptualised be a center for training and development for sustainability leaders, therefore contributing to the effective implementation of the flagship Smart Cities Mission of the Government of India. Mr. Chaudhuri has recently been invited by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) as an Honorary Visiting Senior Fellow in the Transport and Urban Governance Division of Sustainable Habitat Programme. His previous assignments include as the Executive Director, Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (GSIDC) and Director of the Corporation of the City of Panaji, Goa.

Mr. Raj Chengappa
Group Editorial Director- Publishing,
India Today Group

A journalist for over 42 years standing, Raj Chengappa is currently the Group Editorial Director (Publishing) of the India Today Group and Editor of India Today magazine. Prior to this assignment he was the Editor-in-Chief of The Tribune Group of Newspapers. Before that he was with India Today magazine for 29 years and served in various capacities including as its Managing Editor. He has written extensively on politics, foreign affairs, security, nuclear weapons, development, health, education and the environment for India Today. He was a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change between 2006-2014. His best-selling book, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be a Nuclear Power, chronicles India’s nuclear weapons history. A former President of the Editors Guild of India, he has won the Prem Bhatia award for Excellence in Reporting (1998) and the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting (1987). He was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University (1990-91), a Harry Brittain fellow partly at Oxford University (1985) and a Stimson Fellow on Security Issues in Washington, D.C. (1995). He was also a  joint winner of the 2019 National Award for Excellence in Rural Journalism award.

Mr. Manish Chourasia
Managing Director,
Tata Cleantech Capital Ltd

Mr Manish Chourasia is a financial services professional with 23 years of experience in origination, credit risk assessment and syndication in the Asia- Pacific Region. As part of the above mentioned functional categories, he has handled various products covering project finance, trade finance, and investment banking. In July, 2015, he made a career move to the Tata Group and took up responsibility to manage TCCL, which is the first private sector Green Investment Bank in emerging markets, jointly promoted by Tata Capital Ltd and International Finance Corporation (IFC). During his tenure till date, the company, starting from scratch, has funded over 150 projects in Cleantech sector saving 8.4 tons of CO2 annually, executed a number of marquee advisory assignments, and tied up with a few global climate finance investors to channelize low cost funds to the Cleantech sector in India. In November, 2018, the company was chosen as the “Best RE Financier of the Year-NBFC” at the 2nd Edition of the Green Finance Awards. This year, it was also rated “AAA” by CRISIL, an S&P Global company primarily driven by its top class asset book of USD 600 million, which has NIL NPAs. Manish is a Mechanical Engineer from IIT, Rookee and an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University. In 2012 he completed his CFA and since then has been active volunteer with CFA Institute, USA. He is an avid runner with a number of long distance runs to his credit, including the Tata Mumbai half marathon. Apart from this, he likes reading non-fiction books in his spare time.

Ms. Brigitte Collet
French Ambassador for Climate Change Negotiations, Renewable Energy and Prevention of Climate Risk,
Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs of France

Brigitte Collet has been Ambassador of France in charge of Climate Change Negotiations, Renewable Energy and Prevention of Climate Risk since 2016. She was previously Ambassador of France to Ethiopia and Permanent representative to the African Union (2012-2016) and Ambassador of France to Norway (2008-2012). She was chief of staff of the French Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights (2007-2008). She served at the Permanent Representation of France to the United Nations in New York (2004-2007), in the office of the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Vienna (1997-2000), at the French Embassy to the United States (1994-1997) and at the French Embassy in Morocco (1988-1991). Brigitte Collet is a career French diplomat. She is an alumnus of the French National School of Administration (ENA).

Ms. Marylaure Crettaz Corredor
Head of Swiss Cooperation office,
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

Marylaure Crettaz Corredor has more than 20 years of international cooperation experience. After 4 years at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with missions in Rwanda, Kosovo and Colombia, she joined in 2003 the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). She has since then consolidated her experience in natural resources management, rural development, agriculture and food security, climate change and economic development. Since August 2017, she is Counsellor and Head of SDC, Swiss Embassy New Delhi. The SDC work in India mainly focus on Climate Change and Environment, offering Swiss expertise for innovative actions in rural, urban and mountains landscapes. 
 
Marylaure has supported knowledge sharing and policy processes in different fields at national and regional levels (Andes, West Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, South Asia), as well as in global platforms, within SDC Global Programme Food Security and Climate Change & Environment. She has a Masters in Geology and Earth Sciences, University of Lausanne and Bern, Switzerland. 

Mr. Mukesh Dadhich
Asstt VP,
BSES Yamuna Power Ltd

Mukesh Dadhich is having professional experience of more than 22 years mainly in Power Distribution Sector. He is an Electrical Engineer from ECK Kota with an added qualification of PGDBM (Energy Management) from MDI, Gurugram. Presently Mukesh is handling SCADA Systems Operations and Sustainability & Clean Technology vertical in a Power Distribution Utility (BYPL). Mukesh has also gained major experience in handling Power Distribution operations, SCADA Systems, Power Scheduling and load Forecasting, Power Management. He is also responsible for company's Sustainability and Clean technology initiatives. 
 
 

Mr. R K Das
IFS, Chief Conservator of Forests (SFM),
Assam Forest Department

Mr. Ranjan Kumar Das is an officer of the Indian Forest Service (IFS) of 2001 batch Assam-Meghalaya Cadre. He is presently posted as the Chief Conservator of Forests, Sustainable Forest Management, Assam. Mr. Das is an alumini of SFS College, Burnihut (1984-86) and WII, Dehradun (1989-90). He has served as DFO in the protected areas like Kaziranga, State Zoo, Burachapori, Sonai Rupai, Nambor, Panidihing, Dehing-Patkai, Dibru Saikhowa, Gibbon etc. and has created a record by not allowing any poaching of Rhino in the year 2003. His book namely "Kaziranga, Leaves from a Forester's Notebook" has found a place in the World Book Fair held in Frankfurt, West Germany- 2005. Mr. Das has also been honoured with “Kailash Sankhla National Fellowship Award, 2000”.

Mr. Rajib Das
DGM,
CESC Ltd.

Dr. Ganesh Das
Chief Operating Officer,
TPDDL

Mr. Debajit Das
National Project Coordinator,
UNIDO

Graduate in Mechanical Engineering and a Post-Graduate in Environmental Management, Mr. Debajit Das possess more than 20 years of experience in the strategy planning on environmental and sustainability issues.

He has worked on both micro and macro-level energy conservation programmes and has an in-depth understanding of India’s overall developmental needs in the climate change domain.     Mr. Das has a long track record of managing sustainability related projects and has been instrumental in building partnerships with the government, the private sector, international donors and with local community for successful project implementation.    

He has lead range of projects on resource efficiency, energy management, environmental policy, climate change mitigation, business and sustainability and has been core resource persons in number of capacity building and awareness campaign.    

Professionally, he is an accredited Quality Management System / Energy management System Lead Auditor, a qualified Energy Auditors and also a certified auditor of Green House Gas Accounting. As a sustainability professional, Mr. Das has hold prestigious positions in organisations like Hindustan Paper Corporation Ltd., National Productivity Council, Winrock International India, Institute for Industrial Productivity, Sustainability Kinetic LLP and German Development Agency, GIZ GmBH.    

In his current position as a National Project Coordinator he is leading an innovative multilateral programme of ‘Market Transformation of Energy Efficiency Technology in Indian MSME Industries’ at United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.    

Throughout his professional life, he has been seen tirelessly promoting greener concepts to various industrial stakeholders at different platforms.   

Mr. Pradeepta Kumar Das
Teacher,
Tata DAV Public School

Mr. Pradeepta Das completed his Master’s Degree in English from Berhampur University, Odisha. Mr. Das is working as a senior teacher in the Department of English in Tata DAV Public School, Noamundi, Jharkhand.  

At the age of 13, he wrote his first poem in Odia and has now become a passion for him revolving around the theme- philosophy of life, pastoral beauty and self-reliance. His poetry has been published in magazines like ‘Ars Poetica Indiana’, The Golden Vase, The Green Lotus. Anthologies of poetry like ‘We The World Poets', Indian Poets United have placed his creative writings. It is said, poet is the father, and poem is the daughter. Being born on a land of traditions and culture he has gathered unequal memories and has placed them in his creations. His poetic diction is quite unique.  

In addition to this, he has authored many articles in Odia, Hindi and English like Kendra Bharati, Patang, Varnali, etc. Around 45 plays in Hindi and Odia staged in Baripada (Mayurbhanj, Odisha) and Noamundi (West Singhbhum, Jharkhand) have been written and directed by Mr. Das. Along with this, his short stories, poems and plays have been published in many regional, national and international magazines. Recently an anthology of short stories entitled ‘Uansi O Anyanya Galpa' in Odia has been published by Subarnasri Prakashan Balasore, Odisha. 

Mr. Chandrashekhar Dasgupta
Member, Governing Board,
Centre for Policy Research

Chandrashekhar Dasgupta is retired Indian Foreign Service officer. During a 38-year diplomatic career, he served as ambassador to China; the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg; and as high commissioner in Tanzania and Singapore. He was a member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from 2006 to 2018. Dasgupta was involved in the UN climate change negotiations for over a decade during his foreign service career and following his retirement from the foreign service. He was appointed a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change. Dasgupta’s interests include global environmental issues, human rights, and diplomatic history. He serves on the Governing Board of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and is an Emeritus Distinguished Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). His publications include War and Diplomacy in Kashmir 1947-48 and numerous articles on Indian diplomatic history and the global climate change negotiations. Dasgupta is a recipient of the Padma Bhushan award.

Mr. Dipak Dasgupta
Distinguished Fellow,
The Energy and Resources Institute

Mr. Dipak Dasgupta is Distinguished Fellow at TERI and Visiting Senior Fellow at the Council for Social Development and is an international economist with expertise in climate change, finance, agriculture, and macroeconomic policy. He is an expert to several national governments, developed and developing, UN agencies, World Bank, and other national and international financial institutions, research networks and clean technology companies. Mr. Dasgupta is Lead Author of the current IPCC (AR6) on climate finance and contributing author to the 1.5 C report. He was founding Board Member of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the largest specialized global climate finance institution, represented developing countries Board constituency at the first successful resource mobilization of the Fund, and chair of its Investment Committee. He led India's negotiations on climate finance at the UNFCCC from 2011 to 2015. He is former Principal Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. He established and headed the Climate Change Finance Unit at the Ministry. Earlier, he was economist and senior staff of the World Bank from 1981-2010. He is author of over 100 books, reports, papers and other publications in economics, finance and climate.

Mr. Ashvin Dayal
Senior Vice President, Power Initiative,
The Rockefeller Foundation

Ashvin Dayal leads the Foundation’s global Power initiative aimed at scaling up energy access in order to drive economic and social development. He has overseen the Foundation’s pioneering investments in the renewable energy mini-grid space in India and the establishment of Smart Power India, a dedicated platform to support the acceleration of last-mile electrification. As one of the Foundation’s long-term priorities, Ashvin is responsible for shaping its global power investments with an ambitious goal of ending energy poverty and improving the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people over the next decade.

Mr. Dayal joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2008 as its Asia Managing Director, running the Foundation’s regional office in Bangkok, Thailand.  From there he led the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, a major nine-year partnership that equipped over 50 Asian cities to better cope with climate change impacts. He also oversaw the Foundation’s global Inclusive Economies portfolio, a policy and research effort to advance development and impact investments that drive more broadly shared prosperity. Before joining the Foundation, he held a range of senior leadership roles over 15 years with Oxfam in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. This included leading its largest-ever relief and recovery effort in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian Tsunami, and overseeing the creation of Oxfam India.

In addition to his experience across Asia, Ashvin also spent several years working in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, supporting post-conflict reconstruction and economic development programs in Bosnia, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Ashvin holds a bachelor’s degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and a master’s degree from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins.

Mr. Yvo de Boer
Advisor and Consultant,
International Environmental Policy and Former Executive Secretary, UNFCCC

Yvo de Boer is a Partner at SRI Executive where his focus is on working with development agencies to ensure that their strategy and organizational structure are aligned with the challenges of the day. SRI’s approach is to assess where organizations stand in their competitive landscape and work with them to shape a vision and strategy, define products and services, design organizational structures and create appropriate capabilities.

From 2014 to 2016 he served as Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), a treaty-based International Organization with 28 member countries, currently working in 25 countries to develop and implement green growth strategies. During his tenure he revitalized GGGI’s long term strategy, expanded the number of country programs, brought financial stability to the Institute and significantly expanded its operational partnerships.

Before this, Mr. de Boer served as KPMG’s Global Chairman of Climate Change & Sustainability Services (CC&S). In this role, he led KPMG’s international network of climate change and sustainability consulting businesses, which comprise several hundred sustainability professionals in over 60 countries. His focus was mainly on helping companies to develop a broad definition of value which recognizes social, human, environmental, intellectual capitals in addition to financial capital.

As well as leading KPMG’s CC&S agenda, Mr. de Boer advised corporate leaders on the impacts of rapid environmental, social and political change and how their businesses should respond in order to grasp opportunities and manage risks.

Before joining KPMG in 2010, Mr. de Boer led the international process to respond to climate change in the role of Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2006 to 2010. During his tenure he raised the issue of climate change to the highest levels of political and media attention and introduced a strong focus on the need to understand the role of international financial flows. He brought over 100 world leaders to Copenhagen for the international climate negotiations in December 2009 and secured commitments from over 90 countries to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Previously Mr. de Boer has served as Deputy Director-General of the Dutch Environment Ministry, led Dutch and EU delegations during numerous international negotiations and held leadership positions on a variety of international bodies including the Environment Policy Committee of the OECD, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, the World Economic Forum Agenda Council on Climate and the Energy Group of the world Business Council for Sustainable Development. He has served as a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development and acted as an advisor to the World Bank.

In his early career Mr. de Boer was Chief of the Information Office for North America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat).

Throughout his career, he has focused on the economics of sustainability to help policy makers and the business community understand the consequences of acting, or failing to act, in economic, social and environmental terms.

HE Mr. Vincenzo de Luca
Ambassador of Italy to India,
Embassy of Italy

Vincenzo De Luca took office on 1 February 2016 as Director-General for Cultural and Economic Promotion and Innovation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Italy, after having served in the same Directorate General as Deputy Director-General and Principal Director for the Internationalisation of the Italian Economic System (since January 2014).

He has been a career diplomat since 1989 and has been given several assignments at the Foreign Ministry and at the diplomatic representations in Khartoum, Tunis, Paris (at the permanent Representation at the OECD) and in Shanghai. He has a long-standing expertise in the internationalisation of the economic system of the public and private sector, both in Central Offices, in the capacity of Diplomatic Advisor of the Ministries of Industry, Transports and Economic Development, and in large corporations like ENI and ENEL, where he served as Vice President for Institutional International Relations. During the past few years, he played a relevant role in the organisation of the EXPO Milano 2015 as President of the Foreign Ministry’s Task Force, capitalising on his experience as Consul General in Shanghai.

Mr. Milind Deore
Director,
Bureau of Energy Efficiency

Milind Deore as an Energy Economist is leading team at Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Ministry of Power, Government of India for Implementation of Energy Conservation Act, Policies & Schemes of Govt. of India into industries & commercial sectors. He has developed and also involved in implementation of various National level energy efficiency and demand side management schemes & programs like Perform, Achieve & Trade (PAT) Scheme for industrial sectors, Bachat Lamp Yojana (BLY) for domestic sector, Agriculture DSM, Energy Efficiency for SMEs etc. He is also leading the Project Management Units for the implementation GEF funded Energy Efficiency programs through UNIDO & World Bank for small & medium industrial sectors across 35 clusters of India.  He is pioneer to include three new sectors i.e. Petroleum Refineries, Electricity Distribution Companies & Railways into PAT scheme. He is also leadind the implementation of of Partial Risk Guarantee Fund for Energy Efficiency (PRGFEE) and Venture Capital Fund for Energy Efficiency (VCFEE) under National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE). He is also involved in many international cooperation activities with Japan, France, China for energy efficiency. He is a member on various government committees for energy & environmental issues. He holds a business & engineering degree and also Certified Energy Auditor by Govt. of India. 

Mr. Nitin Desai
Chairman,
TERI

Mr Nitin Desai is currently the Chairman of the Governing Council of TERI. A graduate of the London School of Economics, Mr Desai retired from the UN in 2003 as Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs. Prior joining the UN, he was Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser in India’s Ministry of Finance. He served as Deputy Secretary-General of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), a position to which he was appointed in 1990.

His international contributions towards development and promotion of sustainable development as the goal of policy gained significant prominence, first as Senior Adviser and principal draftsman for 'Our Common Future', the Report of the Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development and then as Deputy Secretary-General for the Rio Earth Summit, as manager of the Commission on Sustainable Development for its first decade and as the Secretary General for the Johannesburg Summit. He was also known for his organisation of the Copenhagen Summit on Social Development, the Monterrey Summit on Finance for Development and many other global events. He was also instrumental in increasing the involvement of NGOs in the work of the UN.

Dr. David Easterling
Speaker,
NOAA/National Centers for Environmental Information

David Easterling is a Supervisory Physical Scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NOAA/NCEI) in Asheville, North Carolina.  He is currently Director of the Technical Support Unit (TSU) for the U.S. National Climate Assessment.  The TSU provides scientific, editorial, graphical, and software support to the U.S. National Climate Assessment and sustained assessment process of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.  In his career at NOAA he has developed or enhanced methods to improve the quality of climate data sets, helped guide the development of high quality climate observing networks, and analyzed climate data and model simulations for evidence of climate variability and change, particularly in extreme events. 
 
David received his Ph.D. in 1988 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and served as an Assistant Professor in the Atmospheric Sciences Program, Department of Geography, Indiana University-Bloomington from 1987 to 1990.  In 1990 he moved to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center as a climate scientist, was appointed Principal Scientist in 1999, Chief of the Global Climate Applications Division in 2002, and Director of the Technical Support Unit in 2013.  He is an adjunct Professor in the Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department at N.C. State University. 
 
He has authored or co-authored more than 100 research articles and book chapters on climate science.  David was a Lead Author on the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC Special Report on Climate Extremes, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, a Convening Lead Author for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Synthesis and Assessment Product (SAP) 3.3 on Climate Extremes, and a Convening Lead Author on the Fourth National Climate Assessment.  He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, and has been awarded four NOAA Administrator’s Awards, four NOAA Bronze Medals, and one Department of Commerce Silver Medal. 

HE Mr. Hans Jacob Frydenlund
Ambassador,
Royal Norwegian Embassy

Hans Jacob Frydenlund is presently the Norwegian Ambassador to India.  Before coming to India he was Director for UN Policy in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Frydenlund has served in Chile, at the Norwegian Mission to the European Union in Brussels, at the Norwegian Mission to the United Nations in New York and has been Norwegian Representative to the Palestinian Authority.  He has worked for thirteen years in different capacities with conflict resolution in Africa.  He has been Press Spokesman for International Development in the Ministry.  Frydenlund was born in 1959, is an economist by education, is married and has three grown-up children.

Mr. Joerg Gaebler
Principal Advisor,
GIZ

Jörg Gäbler, a German-American citizen, with 15 years of experience in the German-American business culture, has been appointed Principal Advisor of the Indo German Energy Program since March 2016. Prior, Mr Gaebler was the Managing Director of Wagner Solar Inc from 4/2009 – 11/2015; the US divison of Wagner & Co; the German pioneer of solar energy system manufacturing. Mr. Gäbler holds a BA Business Adminitration  from Northeastern University and M.Sc from the TU Vienna in renewable energy technologies. His master thesis covered the solar market of North America; a process of 3 years of research and market entry preparation for Wagner Solar. At GIZ India; an assignment since 04/2016, Mr Gaebler is heading the Grid Integration and Solar Division supporting the Indian Government in reaching the 40 GW solar target by 2022. His portfolio includes professional studies on Grid Integration supporting Discoms with high shares of vRE, Capacity Building and International Expert Exchanges programs, Pilot and Demonstration project (PV Port and Electrical Storage), and the largest TVET program for solar installers across India.  
 

Prof. Kelly Gallagher
Professor Energy and Environmental Policy and Director, Climate Policy Lab,
The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Kelly Sims Gallagher is Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at The Fletcher School, Tufts University.  She directs the Climate Policy Lab and the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Fletcher.  From June 2014-September 2015 she served in the Obama Administration as a Senior Policy Advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and as Senior China Advisor in the Special Envoy for Climate Change office at the U.S. State Department.  Gallagher is a member of the board of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.  She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and she also serves on the board of the Energy Foundation.

Broadly, she focuses on energy innovation and climate policy.  She specializes in how policy spurs the development and deployment of cleaner and more efficient energy technologies, domestically and internationally.  She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of Titans of the Climate (The MIT Press 2018), The Global Diffusion of Clean Energy Technologies: Lessons from China (MIT Press 2014), China Shifts Gears: Automakers, Oil, Pollution, and Development (The MIT Press 2006), and dozens of other publications.

Mr. Karthik Ganesan
Research Fellow,
Council of Energy, Environment and Water

Karthik Ganesan is a Research Fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). An engineer by training, he leads The Council’s work on the Power Sector, and Industrial Sustainability and Competitiveness. His research focus includes the operational reform of DISCOMs in India and the competitiveness of various power generation sources.  
 
In recent years, Karthik has led an independent effort to assess GHG emissions from the industrial sector and improve transparency in reporting, and has had an integral role in the establishment of the GHG Platform India. He has also led a first-of-itskind evaluation of the impact of industrial policies on the renewable energy sector in India.  
 
He supports ongoing work on the drivers of energy efficiency uptake in industry and the evaluation of energy access indicators for rural Indian households.  
 
His published works include ‘Resurgence of Nuclear Power – Challenges and Opportunities for Asia’ (Springer, Book Chapter), ‘Factors Affecting household satisfaction with electricity supply in India’ (Nature Energy), Energising India – Towards a Resilient and Equitable Energy System (SAGE, book), ‘Rethink India’s Energy Strategy’ (Nature), ‘Co-location opportunities for RE and agriculture in Northwestern India: Trade-offs and Synergies’ (Applied Energy), ‘Valuation of health impact of air pollution from thermal power plants’ (ADB), ‘Technical feasibility of metropolitan siting of nuclear power plants’ (NUS), and ‘Prospects for Carbon Capture and Storage in SE Asia’ (ADB).  
 
Karthik holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He also holds an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and an M.Tech in Infrastructure Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. 

Dr. Rajiv Garg
IFS, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest and Head of Forest Force,
Uttar Pradesh Forest Department

Dr Rajiv Garg is a 1984 batch, Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer of UP cadre presently working as the Principle Chief Conservator of Forest and Head of Forest Force, Uttar Pradesh Forest Department. An alumnus of IIT, Kanpur (India), Forest Research Institute, Dehradun (India), Institute for Development Policy and Management (UK), London Business School (UK), and Maxwell School of Public Policy and Citizenship (USA), Dr. Rajiv possesses professional experience of 35+ years spanning over Government and private & public sector commercial organizations. He has held various projects related to Eco-restoration of Mined out Coalfields, Environmental Audit of Coal Mines, Mitigation Measures to Tiger Habitats from Coal Mining in Central India, MIS for Forest Department in the State of Uttar Pradesh etc. Earlier he has served as SVP with IL&FS Infrastructure Development Corporation (IIDC) / MD, Uttarakhand Infrastructure Projects Pvt. Ltd. and took initiatives to develop green infrastructure in forest resource rich State of Uttarakhand. He was also the Principal Advisor with Coal India Limited (CIL), Dr Rajiv is responsible for reviewing existing policy & regulatory framework affecting coal mining, environment, forests, wildlife, indigenous people and forest dependent communities. 

Mr. Vijay Gavarraju
Program Manager- US India Clean Energy Finance,
Climate Policy Initiative

Vijay Nirmal Gavarraju is the Program Manager for US-India Clean Energy Finance (USICEF) with Climate Policy Initiative. He is an infrastructure financing professional with over 11 years of experience in project and structured finance across renewable energy, thermal power, power transmission, urban infrastructure and commodity manufacturing sectors.  Prior to CPI, Vijay worked with Bank Muscat, IL&FS Financial Services Ltd and Reliance Infrastructure Ltd on various project finance transactions.

Vijay holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow which focused on project finance, corporate finance, commercial banking and investment management.

Prof. Ashok Ghosh
Chairman,
Bihar State Pollution Control Board

Dr. Ashok Ghosh is working as Professor and HoD, Research at Mahavir Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Patna. He is also working as Chairman of Bihar State Pollution Control Board since 10th January 2018. Currently he is working on a multinational (Indo-DutchBangladesh) research project DELTAP for arsenic mobilization in Gangetic floodplains of Bihar supported by NWO-Wotro – The funding agency of The Netherlands Government. Dr.Ghosh is also working on DSTUKIERI supported project Nutri-SAM jointly with University of Salford, UK .Recently Dr.Ghosh has been awarded another International project FAR-GANGA from DST/Newton-Bhabha Fund. Dr.Ghosh has published more than 50 research papers and presented his research findings in International Seminars/conferences in India and abroad. Dr.Ghosh has been awarded Erasmus Mundus Fellowship in 2010,2014 and 2015 for collaborative research with University of Applied Sciences, Karlsruhe, Germany and Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. 

Prof. Sadhan Ghosh
Dean, Faculty of Engineering & Technology & Professor, Mechanical Engineering,
Jadavpur University

Dr. Sadhan K Ghosh, Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, and Chief Coordinator, Centre for Sustainable Development and Resource Efficiency Management, Jadavpur University, is a renowned personality in the field of  Waste Management, Circular Economy, Green Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Sustainable Development, Co-processing, recycling, ISO standards and TQM. Prof Ghosh is the founder Chairman of the IconSWM; President of International Society of Waste Management, Air and Water (ISWMAW) & Chairman, Consoortium of Researchers in International Collaboration. He received several awards in India and foreign countries including the Distinguished Visiting Fellowship 2012 by the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK to work on ‘Energy Recovery from MSW’. He received three patents for machines & processes of  “eco-friendly plastics recycling …..” and “Automatic High Speed Jute Ribboning Machine”.  He wrote nine books, more than 40 edited volumes, more than 200 national and international articles and book chapters and Associate Editor of special issues of WM & R and IJMCWM. His significant contribution has been able to place the name of Jadavpur University in the world map of research on waste management having research collaboration with 30 countries. He has been instrumental in implementating “Policy on Anti Plagiarism, Jadavpur University, 2019”. Website : www.sadhankghosh.com.

Dr. Prodipto Ghosh
Distinguished Fellow,
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)

Prodipto Ghosh is involved in research and teaching at the interface of science, economics, philosophy, and public policy. Currently, he is Distinguished Fellow at TERI. He is concurrently member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Cabinet, Governing Council of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, Member of Task Force on Inter-linking of Rivers, Indian Resource Panel, and Task Forces of other bodies including FICCI, etc. Earlier he was member of the PMs Council on Climate Change, Advisory Committee on G-20 matters of the Ministry of Finance, and member of the National Security Advisory Council. He is Adjunct Faculty at the Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh (where he lectures on Indian macroeconomic policy and public finance), TERI University (where he teaches a post-graduate courses on Normative Ethics, Microeconomics and Regulation, and Climate Change and Policy), and formerly Visiting Fellow at the Smith College, Oxford (with whom he is engaged in collaborative policy research). He is an external examiner for M.Phil. dissertations in the Department of Philosophy, Delhi University, and Ph.D dissertations in the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. 

He was a member of the IAS from 1969 to 2007, when he retired as Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests. He has also held the positions of Economic Advisor and Additional Secretary to the PM (during which he was Member-Secretary of the PMs Economic Advisory, and Trade and Industry Councils, as well as co-Executive Secretary of the Indo-US Economic Dialogue), Additional Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, and Senior Environment Specialist at the Asian Development Bank, Manila. He was a member of India’s negotiating team at the UNFCCC climate change negotiations from 2001 to 2012. He is the author of a number of peer reviewed research papers, and several newspaper articles. 

He has a Ph.D in Economics and Policy Analysis from the Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, and a B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi, and has received Alumni Achievement Awards from both institutions. He is also the recipient of the BP Pal Centenary Memorial Award. 

Dr. Arunabha Ghosh
CEO,
COUNCIL ON ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT AND WATER

DR ARUNABHA GHOSH is a public policy professional, adviser, author, columnist, and institution builder. As the founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, since 2010, he has led CEEW to the top ranks as one of South Asia's leading policy research institutions (six years in a row); and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks in 2016. He has been actively involved in the design of the International Solar Alliance since inception. He conceptualised and is founding board member of the Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN). With experience in 45 countries, he previously worked at Princeton, Oxford, UNDP (New York), and WTO (Geneva). In 2018, the UN Secretary-General nominated him to the UN's Committee for Development Policy. In 2018, the Government of India appointed him as a member of the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority for the National Capital Region. His 2019 TED Talk on air quality (Mission 80-80-80) crossed 100,000 views within three weeks of release.

He is the co-author/editor of four books: The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy (2016); Energizing India: Towards a Resilient and Equitable Energy System (SAGE, 2016); Human Development and Global Institutions (Routledge, 2016); and Climate Change: A Risk Assessment (FCO, 2015). Arunabha’s essay “Rethink India’s energy strategy” in Nature was selected as one of 2015’s ten most influential essays.

Arunabha advises governments, industry, civil society and international organisations around the world. This has included India’s Prime Minister’s Office, several ministries and state governments. He was invited by France, as a Personnalité d’Avenir, to advise on the COP21 climate negotiations; and also advised extensively on HFC negotiations. He served on the Executive Committee of the India-U.S. PACEsetter Fund. He has been a member of Track II dialogues with ten countries/regions; and formulated the Maharashtra-Guangdong Partnership on Sustainability. His monthly columns in the Business Standard (Inflexion Points) and the Hindustan Times (Over The Horizon) are widely read. He has hosted a documentary on water in Africa, featured in a National Geographic documentary on energy, and delivered a TED Talk on air quality. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, member of WEF’s Global Future Council on Energy, and an Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader. He holds a D.Phil. from Oxford and topped Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Mr. Sohinder Gill
CEO- Global Business,
Hero Electric Vehicles Pvt. Ltd

Sohinder Gill is the CEO‐ Global Business for HERO ELECTRIC and DIRECTOR GENERAL of the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) both for the last 11 years. A Mechanical Engineer from DCE, he started his career with Larsen & Toubro in the Aerospace division in the Satellite launching project of ISRO. He later worked in all the major functions in leading automotive organisations like HERO MOTO, ESCORTS, YAMAHA, HONDA, KINETIC AND JK GROUP in manufacturing, Engineering, Marketing, International Business and Strategy Management. He is a certified BPR specialist and has been involved in many JVs and M&As in his career. He started SMEV in 2008 to create a collective vision for electric mobility in India. SMEV has been playing pivotal role in supporting the EV industry and assisting the government and the institutions to create an optimum eco‐system to promote EVs. Today SMEV is a strong, independent 85‐member’s organization representing the entire spectrum of EVs like Ather, Greaves Cotton, Sun‐Mobility, Minda, Kinetic, Indian Oil, BPCL, Gail, Bosch, Exicom, Hero Electric and many others. The views and opinions of SMEV are respected and trusted across the stakeholders. Sohinder Gill closely interacts with the policy makers, academia, technology institutions, certification agencies and foreign partners to help create the right eco‐system for EVs in India. He looks forward to mentoring start‐ups who dream to make it big in the EV Industry.

Mr. Debdas Goswami
Senior Adivsor,
International Copper Association

Mr. Debdas Goswami is a Graduate in Electrical Engineering, having more than 36 years of experience in working with industry, government policy formulation, standardization and conformity assessment. He worked with Bureau of Indian Standards for about 30 years in various capacities including as head of standardisation for sectors like electrical, electronics, IT and ICT technology area and has vast experience in the field of standard development at national and international level. Mr. Goswami has extensive hands on field experience in conformity assessment activities and worked for the Govt. policy formulation, development of regulation and their enforcement. He has travelled abroad extensively to represent the country in International meetings and also worked as convener of IEC working Group on LVDC, participated in many bilateral trade negotiation and WTO activities. Mr. Goswami is a qualified lead auditor for ISO management systems like ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. He also has experience of assessment for the Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award and National Energy Conservation Award. 

Dr. Vikram Gulati
Country Head & Sr. Vice President,
Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd.

Currently working as Country Head & Sr. Vice President (External Affairs, PR, CSR & CG Division) at Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Limited (TKM). He is a postgraduate in Chemistry from St Stephen’s College, Delhi University and holds a management degree from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, Haryana, India. Earlier while serving as a Civil Servant (IRPS: 1992 batch), he has a rich and varied experience of over 22 years of working in the Government in various capacities. This includes working in Department of Heavy Industry (DHI) wherein one of the areas of responsibility was the automotive sector and, in that capacity, he was involved actively in shaping the electric mobility initiative and framing of the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020.

Mr. Rajat Gupta
Senior Partner,
McKinsey & Company

Rajat Gupta, Senior Partner and Leader, McKinsey’s global energy and materials sector
Rajat has worked with leading companies in the metals, chemical, infrastructure, mining, power, oil, and telecommunications sectors. He brings particular expertise in operational transformations and change programs, leveraging digital tools in these areas. Rajat has also served clients on business building (including digital businesses), marketing, organization, and strategy. Rajat also leads the firm’s work with the central government, working across multiple ministries—such as those for aviation, railways, roads, and shipping—on major programs and transformations.
Passionate about sustainability and resource productivity, Rajat has published work on poverty, carbon abatement, and water in India; been on the jury for several awards; and served on several industry and government committees on sustainability. He is on the board of the Indian think tank CSTEP and the governing board of the Childline India Foundation. Rajat leads McKinsey’s social-responsibility efforts through Generation, the world’s largest demand-driven skilling initiative, and is a member of the McKinsey Global Institute advisory council.
Rajat was awarded gold medals for securing first place in both his MBA and engineering degrees at two of India’s top schools.

Mr. Will Hall
Associate Fellow,
TERI

Will is an Associate Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) based in Delhi. At TERI, Will works on industry transition through the Energy Transitions Commission India platform. Prior to TERI, Will was an economic adviser to the UK government on energy and climate policy for several years, covering the power sector, heat decarbonisation and the hydrogen economy. Before this, Will worked as an energy industry analyst for a consultancy based out of London.

Dr. Adonai Herrera-Martinez
Director, Environmental Funds,
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

Since June 2019, Adonai Herrera-Martínez is the Director for Environmental Funds at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). He manages a portfolio of c. EUR 500 million in grant allocations for sustainable development projects across the region. He also chairs the green economy clearing house for the EBRD.  Between September 2017 to August 2019, Adonai was the Bank’s President Lead Adviser, supporting Sir Suma in his role as chief of staff of the Bank. Prior to this and since 2009, he was the EBRD Sustainable Energy Manager based in Istanbul. His work included the coordination of the sustainable energy activities of the Bank in Turkey, covering private sector investments, technical assistance to clients and policy dialogue. He co-led the development of the National Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Action Plans for Turkey. Adonai previously worked at UNDP in New York and Dakar, and at CERN in Geneva. He received his MBA degree from INSEAD in 2009 and his PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Cambridge in 2004, having developed his research at CERN, with Professor Carlo Rubbia (Physics Nobel Laureate in 1984), in the topic of Elimination of Nuclear Waste in Accelerator-Driven Systems.

Ms. Aimi Iseda
Representative,
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) India

Ms. Aimi Iseda joined the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in 2015 and engaged in operations for Myanmar from 2015 to 2017. She has been a part of the Finance Department to draw up JICA’s annual budget from 2017 to 2019.  
 
Currently, she serves as the Representative in JICA Office, where she has been engaged since 2019.  

Mr. Parameswaran Iyer
Secretary to the Government of India,
Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation

Mr. Parameswaran Iyer is Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India and is leading its flagship Swachh Bharat Mission and the National Rural Drinking Water Program. A 1981 batch IAS officer, he joined the World Bank in 2009. Prior to his current appointment, Mr. Iyer was serving as Manager for Water in the World Bank based in Washington DC. He has over 20 years of experience in the water supply and sanitation sector. He is known for initiating and implementing the “Swajal Program” amongst other initiatives in the sector. During his stint at the World Bank he has also worked in Vietnam, China, Egypt and Lebanon.

Mr. Amit Jain
Senior Energy Specialist,
The World Bank Group

Ms. Anjali Jaiswal
Senior Director, India, International Program,
Natural Resources Defense Council

Anjali Jaiswal collaborates with local partners in India to advance energy efficiency, promote solar energy, and protect communities from the impacts of climate change. Previously, she was a member of NRDC's litigation team, fighting for stronger efficiency standards in appliances and increased protection of wilderness. She also spent six years working with NRDC's water program in the Los Angeles office. In 2005, Jaiswal was selected to be a fellow in the Nehru-Fulbright Indo-American Environmental Leadership program. She has been profiled by both Marie Claire and the Daily Journal. She holds a bachelor's degree in environmental sciences from the University of California, Riverside, and a JD from Hastings College of Law. She is based in San Francisco.

Mr. Poul V. Jensen
Managing Director,
European Business and Technology Centre

Mr. Jensen has been the Director of EBTC, where his main focus is the SME and research communities, and his main mandate is to pragmatically execute the task of bringing EU and India even closer together in their strategic and operational relations. This includes addressing challenges in transferring clean technologies, providing input for developing clusters, and for developing procedures to enhance collaboration on R&D and innovation.  
Poul holds a Bachelors in International Trade from the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark and a Master’s in Business Administration from CASS Business School, London. His career started 1989 at the then largest Danish Conglomerate, East Asiatic Company, a shipping, transportation and distribution firm, operating globally. 

Mr. Jeevan Kumar Jethani
Director,
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy

Mr. J.K. Jethani is an Electrical Engineer with a Postgraduate Diploma in Infrastructure Management. He is also a Certified Energy Auditor worked in various fields of Indian Power Sector. He has worked in rural electrification and distribution for four years. He has also worked in a coal-based thermal power station during construction and commissioning, and handled operation and maintenance of a coal-handling plant for three years.  

He has been associated with Rajasthan Power Sector Restructuring Project and part of the team dealing with World Bank, the lender for the project, for five years. He has worked in Rural Electrification Corporation (Navratna PSU of Government of India) dealing with RGGVY scheme for three years. As a representative of Rajasthan Power Sector companies in Delhi, he coordinated with various central as well as other agencies on various issues of Rajasthan Power Sector for four years.  

Mr. Jethani is working in the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Government of India, New Delhi since March, 2011. He is responsible for the formulation of policy and regulations related to renewable energy, preparation of implementation framework for National Solar Mission, introducing bidding in wind energy sector, bidding guidelines and schemes for wind power procurement, rooftop solar and off-grid solar applications, etc. 

Dr. Livleen Kaur Kahlon
Associate Director,Environmental Education and Awareness Area,
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)

Livleen leads the Environment Education and Awareness programs at TERI. She has a vast experience of working in fields of environment research, outreach and conservation education. She joined TERI in 2002, and since then has been actively engaged in creating a niche for environment education both within the organization and outside. GREEN Olympiad is a major project being implemented under her direct supervision. She has experimented and implemented several programs around basic education designs and innovative, multidisciplinary ideas for youth of all age groups. 'Catching them young' is the motto behind activities designed under the banner of Environment Education (EE) at TERI and the focus is on channelizing energy of youth towards sustainable development goals (SDGs).  She has over two decades of experience and has led several projects with interdisciplinary teams, and applied innovative strategies to examine various crosscutting issues such as Energy conservation, WASH education, Waste management, Climate Change education, to design and implement school and college based projects with a multiplier effect. 

Livleen works closely with CBSE, NCERT, and various Education boards promoting TERI’s Environment Education (EE) initiatives through these channels of governance. As a core competency she supports an active engagement with youth to motivate them in acquiring 21st century futuristic skills. As an active member of her working group, she is involved in bringing out several books, newsletters, workbooks, manuals, films and other IEC material. 

A botanist by training from Delhi University, Livleen also has a Ph.D in Environment Management from GGS Indraprastha University, New Delhi. Apart from Environment Education and Science Popularization, she has an avid interest in tribal knowledge systems and her doctoral research was also in this field.  

Livleen is a member of ESD Expert Net, which is a leading network of environment educators based in India, Germany, Mexico and South Africa. Prior to joining TERI she has worked with WWF, India, and NISCAIR (CSIR) in similar capacities. 
 
 

Mr. Saba Kalam
Programme Officer,
United Nations Development Programme

Saba is working in the field of Climate Change and Energy from past 15 years. He has been actively involved in developing and implementing climate change programme/projects that aligns with Government of India priorities on meeting national and international climate change commitments. Currently he is working with UNDP as Programme Officer looking after the climate change and energy portfolio. Previously he worked with British High Commission as Senior Programme Manager and was primarily responsible for managing Low Carbon High Growth Programme in India working around some key forward-looking elements of UK-India bilateral relations on international energy and climate policy. He has also worked with Foundation for Ecological Security on planning and managing watershed development projects for building adaptive capacity of local communities. 
 

Mr. Ajay Kaundal
HOG (DSM),
Tata Power DDL

Mr. Ajay Kaundal is an Electrical Engineer by profession who graduated from Delhi College of Engineering. He has over 25 years of experience in power generation, distribution and regulatory affairs. In the past, he has handled the operations and maintenance of a 600 MW power plant as well as regulatory affairs. He has also been responsible for the framing of various regulations under Electricity Act, 2003. He is familiar with Indian electricity rules, regulations and laws. He also has expertise in contract management and vendor development, capital investment planning, demand side management and energy efficiency, solar roof top business development, and, procurement and contracts. 
 
He has worked as a Senior Executive Engineer at Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd., Neyveli, Deputy Director (Engg.) at Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission, Delhi. He is presently heading Demand Side Management Group in Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd.       

Ms. Ulka Kelkar
Director, Climate program,
WRI India

Ulka Kelkar is Director, Climate program, WRI India. She leads WRI India’s work on climate policy which aims to support India’s pathway to a low-carbon economy. She is an economist with two decades of experience in climate change research, capacity building and outreach. Before joining WRI India, she worked as a consultant climate assessment specialist for the Asian Development Bank, and as a research fellow with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE).  
 
At WRI India, Ulka leads research on how the Indian economy can continue to grow while also moderating the growth of carbon emissions through judicious national policies, carbon market mechanisms, and effective implementation in states and cities.  
 
She has previously worked on the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) roadmap on climate change, National Strategy Study on CDM in India, Maharashtra State Action Plan on Climate Change, and greenhouse gas inventory for the first national communications of India and Bhutan to the UNFCCC.   
 
Ulka is interested in using behavioural economics to energy and climate issues and has applied behavioural economics to understand what might motivate urban households to switch to renewable energy technologies.

Ms. Mani Khurana
Senior Energy Specialist,
World Bank Group

Mani Khurana is a Senior Energy Specialist with the World Bank. Working for over thirteen years in World Bank and leading investment projects and analytical activities across energy sector value chain. She has been leading the Bank ‘s power sector engagement in various states in India. The engagements include financing of the critical power infrastructure and providing technical assistance to improve the operational efficiency and financial sustainability of the power sector utilities.  She is also leading the solar rooftop project which provides access to finance at concessional rates to solar rooftop developers. She has co-authored many World Bank studies including a study on Financial performance of India ‘s power sector: Beyond Crisis. . The book assessed the situation of India power sector 10 years after the landmark Electricity Act 2003. She has been an integral part of other WB studies including Lighting Rural India: Experience of Rural Load Segregation Scheme in States, Rethinking Power sector reforms. She has a Master’s in Business Administration from Indian School of Business and holds a master’s degree in Economics from Delhi School of Economics. 
 
 

Mr. Manoj Kohli
Country Head,
SoftBank India

Manoj Kohli is the Country Head, SoftBank India and is supporting interest of SoftBank, SoftBank Vision Fund and their portfolio companies like OLA, OYO, WeWork, Katerra, Paytm etc in India. He is responsible for addressing government and policy related issues which will help the company to achieve its goal. 
Manoj was the Executive Chairman of the SB Energy – SoftBank Group, which plans to invest in 20GW of renewable energy projects in India. It already has a pipeline of over 5GW of RE capacity in India. 

Prior to this, Manoj's key contribution has been building Airtel as no 3 telco in the world with over 360m customers. He led Bharti Airtel’s India operations during which the customer base grew from 2 million to 150 million before moving to the International responsibility in 20 countries in 2010.

Manoj started his career in 1979 with the DCM Shriram Group, where he initially led the HR function, followed by leadership positions in the Foods, Chemicals and Fertilizer businesses and assignments in Engineering projects, including Shriram Honda. Overall his 41 years of work experience is divided between the manufacturing and telecom sectors.  
 

Mr. Satyendra Kumar
Deputy Secretary,
Ministry of Environment and Foreset

Mr. Satyendra Kumar is an expert in policy matters related to prevention, control and abatement of air pollution. He graduated from National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra. He is also an alumnus of IIT Delhi where he obtained his M.Tech. degree in Energy Studies. He has worked in the High Level Task Force under the Chairmanship of Principal Secretary to Prime Minister for tackling air pollution in Delhi and NCR. He has also worked towards building healthy and resilient coastal and marine ecosystems for sustainable development with focus on conservation of coastal and marine ecosystems, enhancement of coastal and ocean resource efficiency.  

Mr. P R Kumar
CEO,
BSES Yamuna Power Limited Delhi

Mr. P.R. Kumar, 53 holds Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Electrical Discipline from National Institute of Technology, Nagpur. Further, he has also completed Masters in Business Administration from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi. He is having a rich experience of over 30 years in Power Sector in the areas of Power Generation and Distribution covering fields like Project Planning, Project Development, Techno-Commercial Studies, Erection and Commissioning, Operation and Maintenance, Financial Analysis, Strategic Planning etc. Mr. P.R. Kumar has served in different organizations like U.P.S.E.B, N.T.P.C, D.V.B, BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd. and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd. 
He is associated with BSES Yamuna Power Ltd. Rajdhani Power Ltd. since 2002, managing the areas like Strategic Planning, Business Operations, Regulatory, Legal etc. 
Prior to taking over as Chief Executive Officer of BSES Yamuna Power Ltd.(BYPL), Mr. P.R. Kumar was Business Head in BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd.(BRPL), the power distribution company which caters to over 2.4 million customers in South and West Delhi. 

BSES Yamuna Power Ltd. is a joint venture Company with 51% stake owned by Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. and 49% by GNCTD, catering the power supply demand of 1.7 Million customers of East, North East and Central Delhi. 

BSES Yamuna experienced a sharp turnaround under the leadership of Mr. Kumar. 

Mr. Anand Kumar
Secretary,
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India

Mr. Anand Kumar is a career civil servant. He joined Indian Administrative Service in the year 1984 and was allotted to Kerala State. He holds M. Phil degree with distinction from University of Delhi and MBA degree with honours from University of Queensland, Australia. During his career he has held many important positions in Tourism, Infrastructure, Industry, Biotechnology, Finance, Revenue, Elections and Governance sectors under the State and Federal Governments. During initial stages of his career, he served as District Collector and Magistrate of Idukki and Calicut Districts in Kerala. He was assigned challenging duty of managing the relief camps on Iraq - Amman border and repatriation of Indians during Kuwait - Iraq war of 1990. While in Kerala Tourism, he was instrumental in setting up a new Institute in Tourism and Travel Management, District Tourism Promotion Councils and also giving a new direction to branding, promotion and marketing of Kerala Tourism. He was part of the team which launched ‘God’s Own Country’ Campaign and planned introduction of House Boats in Kerala. He served as Deputy Election Commissioner in the Election Commission of India and conducted landmark Bihar Legislative Assembly elections in 2005. He was appointed as Chief Technical Adviser for Nigerian General Elections 2007 by UNDP. He served UNDP, Nigeria for the purpose from 2006 to 2008. He has since acted as a resource person for UNDP on Elections and Governance having done assignments in Cambodia, Lebanon and Belgium. He designed international campaign ‘Find What You Seek’ that received First Golden Gate Award in Berlin and domestic campaign ‘Go Beyond’ while working as Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. In Infrastructure sector, Mr. Kumar scripted first Port Privatisation Policy for the country. He was Founding Managing Director of National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL). Currently he is serving as Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India.  In spare time, Mr. Kumar writes and paints.

Dr. Rajiv Kumar
Vice Chairman,
NITI Aayog

Dr. Rajiv Kumar took over as Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, in the rank and status of a Cabinet Minister, on 1 September 2017. He also serves as the Chancellor of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune.  He has wide experience of having worked in government, academia, industry as well as in multilateral institutions.  He was a professor at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi and worked with the Asian Development Bank, Manila for 10 years. His earlier stint in Government of India (1989-1994) was initially with the Ministry of Industry and subsequently in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, as Economic Adviser (1991-1994).  He also served as an independent director on the Central Board of RBI and SBI. Dr. Kumar has a Ph.D. in Economics from Lucknow University and a D. Phil. From Oxford University.

Prof. Kenneth Kunkel
Lead Scientist for Asssessments,
North Carolina State University

Dr. Kenneth Kunkel is Research Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University and Lead Scientist for Assessments with the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies. He holds a B.S. degree in Physics from Southern Illinois University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a lead author on the 3rd and 4th United States National Climate Assessments, and a contributing author to the 3rd, 4th, and 6th IPCC Assessments. He has published 165 scientific journal articles and book chapters. 

Dr. Kunkel’s research has focused on historical climate variability and trends and on potential future change, particularly related to extreme events, such as heavy precipitation, heat waves, cold waves, and winter storms. A particular focus has been the historical variations in the frequency and intensity of such extreme events extending from the late 19th Century to the present. A recent focus is on the development of methods to incorporate climate change considerations into heavy rainfall design values that are used in the design of long-lived infrastructure.

Ms. Mathsy Kutty
Regional Manager - Green Initiatives,
Infosys Limited

Mathsy is an Environmental Engineer by qualification, (B.E Environmental and MSc Environmental), with core experience in the areas of Climate Change, sustainability and Env. Health & Safety. Over a career spanning about 17 years, she has played several roles from consultant, to auditor, to implementer at Corporates. Mathsy, a Regional Manager at Infosys Ltd, spearheads the Climate Change mitigation & adaptation Strategies for Infosys, while also identifying and managing climate change risks and opportunities for the company. She has played vital role in defining the Carbon offset projects that can drive home huge socio-economic benefits. She has also led Infosys on the Digitization journey for their EHS management practices.   
 
Mathsy specializes in the areas of Climate change, corporate sustainability, financial risk assessment, EHS & compliance management in addition to Sustainability Reporting. She has also been a member of some of the NGOs networks while providing inputs on using carbon funds for both emission avoidance and socioeconomic development of the area. While working with the corporates to ensure sustainable business, Mathsy is a strong believer in using Corporate responsibility to maximize community outreach programs. To date the programs initiated under her leadership and guidance have touched over 120,000 families across India.   

Dr. Amit Love
Scientist 'D' / Joint Director , Ozone Cell,
Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC), GoI

Amit Love is the Scientist-D/Joint Director of Ozone Cell at the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Dr. Love looks after the Ozone Cell, National Ozone Unit (NOU) to render necessary services for effective and timely implementation of the Montreal Protocol and its ODS phase-out program in India. 

Dr. Rajeevan Madhavan Nair
Secretary to the Government of India,
Ministry of Earth Sciences

Dr. M. Rajeevan, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, is well known for his research work in Tropical Meteorology including monsoon variability, seasonal monsoon forecasts, climate change, cloud-radiation interaction and prediction of convective weather systems. He has more than 35 years of experience, both as an operational forecaster and also as an active researcher.  He contributed significantly for developing many application tools and prediction models for societal applications like long-range monsoon prediction models, gridded climate data sets and many other climate application products for regional climate services. His research contributions include analysis of climate variability and change using observed data, understanding cloud-radiation interaction, Earth’s radiative balance, three-dimensional structure of tropical clouds and variability and prediction of mesoscale weather systems. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (IASc), the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), and the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI); member of the International Academy of Astronautics, Paris; and a High-level Advisor, and Member, Research Board of the World Meteorological Organization. 

Mr. Ajai Malhotra
Distinguished Fellow & Sr. Advisor (Climate Change),
TERI

Ambassador Ajai Malhotra holds an M.A. in Economics from Delhi School of Economics. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1977 and worked at the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, and Indian missions in Bucharest, Geneva, Kuwait, Moscow, Nairobi, New York and Washington DC. He retired as Ambassador of India to the Russian Federation, after thirty seven years of distinguished service. Since April 2014, Ambassador Malhotra is Distinguished Fellow & Senior Adviser (Climate Change) with TERI, New Delhi. He is also currently Independent Director of ONGC and of ONGC Videsh Limited; Member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council, Geneva; Chairman & Managing Trustee of CHIKITSA, an NGO providing free primary health care to the needy; Chairman & Managing Trustee of SHIKSHA, an NGO providing free education to underprivileged children; Chairman, Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum; and Chairman, NAB India Centre for Blind Women & Disability Studies.

Dr. Ajay Mathur
Director General,
TERI

Ajay Mathur is Director General of TERI - The Energy & Resources Institute, and a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change. He was Director General of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency in the Government of India from 2006 till February, 2016, and responsible for bringing energy efficiency into our homes, offices, and factories, through initiatives such as the star labelling programme for appliances, the Energy Conservation Building Code, and the Perform, Achieve and Trade programme for energy-intensive industries. Dr. Mathur was earlier with TERI from 1986 to 2000, and then headed the Climate Change Team of World Bank in Washington DC. He was President of Suzlon Energy Limited, also headed the interim Secretariat of the Green Climate Fund.He has been a key Indian climate-change negotiator, and was also the Indian spokesperson at the 2015 climate negotiations at Paris. He is a global leader on technological approaches to address climate change; recently, he joined the global group of industrial, financial and think-tank leaders to co-chair an Energy Transitions Commission which will suggest ways for companies and countries to move towards climate-friendly energy futures.

Dr. Prabhakar Mathyam
Principal Scientist,
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)

Dr. Thomas Daniel Mattee
Senior Science Consultant for Environemnt,
Vital Strategies

Dr. Thomas Matte is Vital Strategies’ Senior Science Consultant for Environmental Health. Tom is an environmental epidemiologist and public health physician with more than 30 years of experience in public health practice, policy development and research in national and local government and academic settings. Prior to joining Vital Strategies, he served as an Assistant Commissioner at the New York City public health department where he directed studies of air pollution, climate and other urban environmental health hazards. He led the team that developed the New York City Community Air Survey as part of New York City’s first comprehensive sustainability plan, launched by Mayor Bloomberg. He previously served as a medical officer at the National Center for Environmental Health of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where his work spanned diverse environmental health topics, including investigation and control of lead poisoning in the US and internationally, housing and health, waterborne illness and health effects of prenatal and early childhood exposures. Tom holds degrees from Albany Medical College (M.D.) and and the Harvard School of Public Health (M.P.H). 

Dr. Nils May
Senior Economist,
German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)

Dr. Nils May is a Senior Economist at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). As such, he works on applied research in the fields of energy transition, industry decarbonization and climate finance. He is a professional with years of experience in conducting research-based policy projects for example for research foundations, ministries of economic affairs, the environment, and finance. His research has been published in Energy Economics and Public Finance Analysis and he has co-authored more than 20 policy papers on renewable energy investments, policies for breakthrough innovation in industry and power market reform.

HE Mr. Patrick Medecin
Ambassador,
Embassy of Monaco in India

Patrick MEDECIN was born on 7 September 1955 in Monaco. He was appointed Ambassador on 22 September 2011, and presented his Letters of Credence to the President of the Republic of India, Ms. Prathiba Patil, on 12 January 2012.He is a graduate of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (H.E.C.) business school and holds a law degree.  He occupied various posts in the financial management of industrial companies before founding a business in the field of communications in 1985, and then, in 1995, one of the first Internet service provider companies on the Côte d'Azur.

In 2000, he became a member of the Management Committee of Monaco Telecom, the telecommunications operator in the Principality of Monaco, where he held the post of Acting Director in Regulation and in Public Affairs, then Director of Corporate Communications, and finally, Director of Internal Audit.He is deeply attached to his country, and in parallel to his professional activity, plays an active role in Monegasque public life. From 1988 to 1994, he was an appointed member of the Economic and Social Council.

In 1993, he was elected National Councillor at the Monegasque Legislative Assembly, where he served until 2003. He took part in the work of the Legislation, Finance and Foreign Affairs Committees, and was a member of the Monegasque Parliament's delegations to the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Council of Europe.

In 2010, he was appointed Commissioner of the Data Protection Authority of Monaco (C.C.I.N.), an independent personal data protection authority, which he left the following year on his appointment as Ambassador. He is married with two children and is a Knight of the Order of Saint Charles of the Principality of Monaco and a Knight of the National Order of Merit of the French Republic.

Dr. Nisha Mendiratta
Adviser and Scientist 'G',
Department of Science and Technology (DST)

Dr. Nisha Mendiratta is currently working as Adviser & Scientist ‘G’ in Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India.  She is serving as Associate Head of Climate Change Programme, SPLICE Division of DST.  She did her post-graduation in Agricultural Physics from Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi and obtained her doctorate degree from Meerut University. She has a Post- Graduate diploma in “Satellite Remote Sensing and GIS” from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS), Department of Space, Dehradun.  
 
She has worked in some of the country’s leading research institutions such as National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Hyderabad; Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun and National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, Noida, Ministry of Earth Science. She developed a few major programmes at NRDMS & SPLICE Program Divisions of DST involving various research and academic institutions & scientists of the country.  
 
She is recipient of the meritorious PG fellowships at IARI.  Dr Nisha published over 50 research papers and articles and co-authored a number of departmental technical documents. She has recently edited two books on Bio-geo data entitled “Guidelines for BIO-GEO Database Creation & Sustainable Watershed Development Planning in Himalayas” and “”Bio-Geo data standards”. She is serving as Expert member of a number of national/International level committees on Climate Change and related issues.  Recently, she has been contributing in the CoP event of UNFCCC as a panelist and coordinating various sessions on climate change. 
 

Mr. Vijay Menghani
Chief Engineer,
Central Electricity Authority , Ministry of Power

Ms. Geeta Menon
Joint Secretary,
Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC), GoI

Ms. Geeta Menon belongs to the 1992 batch of the Indian Audit & Accounts Service (IA&AS). She joined Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change in December, 2018 as Joint Secretary.   Ms. Menon is presently looking after the work of Impact Assessment, Hazardous Substances Management, Montreal Protocol, Ozone Cell, India Cooling Action Plan, etc. Prior to this, she was working as Principal Director of Audit, North-Western Railway, Jaipur.   

Ms. Manju Menon
Country Manager- ACRA,
ACRA

Manju Menon is representing Fondazione ACRA, an Italian International NGO. For ACRA, She steers an EU funded project on Sustainable Transport, in India with a consortium of partners. 
 
She has been associated with Social Impact space for 15+ years and has handled Operations and Strategy positions in national and international NGOs, Social Enterprises and Impact funds. Her expertise lies in designing, piloting and scaling up Community- based social projects while building multi-stakeholder partnerships. She has also had first-hand exposure to the community-based work in South Africa and Brazil. Besides her present work in the area of sustainable transportation, she carries with her practical understanding of domains like child education, community health, skill development for youth, safe drinking water, etc. 
 
Manju is also a part of an international team of trainers that builds the capacity of non-profits and has delivered training nationally and internationally on the topic of local fundraising for non-profits.  She has completed a fellowship on Behavioural Change Communication from the Academy of Change, Germany.  An IDEX Global fellow on Social Entrepreneurship, she is also pursuing her doctoral research in the field of Social Entrepreneurship. 
 
She has co-founded NuSocia, a Strategic CSR design consulting organisation in 2017 to channelize her creativity and knowledge gained over the years

Mr. Vikash Mishra
Head, External Relations,
Lithium Urban Technology

I currently lead the External Relations for the Lithium Urban Technology. My responsibility includes policy advocacy, business development, reputation building, strategic partnership and represent company in external forums. Lithium is the largest electric fleet operator in the world outside China in 4W category. It currently operates in nine cities in India, serving 30+ corporate clients for their employee transport needs. Till date, Lithium has completed 100 million kms using its 1100+ electric fleets. In my previous role, I lead the Electric Mobility Initiative to accelerate the adoption of electric mobility in India anchored at Shakti Foundation. Prior to that, I have worked as Country Head- External Relations at Shell India, Consultant at McKinsey & Company and Operations Engineer in Indian Oil Refinery. I have completed my B. Tech degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 2000 and later in 2008, I completed my MBA from NUS Business School in Singapore.

Mr. Sanjay Mitra
Professor of Practice,
IIT Delhi

Mr Sanjay Mitra is a retired 1982 batch of Indian Administrative Service officer of West Bengal cadre. Recently he has retired as Defence Secretary, Government of India and prior to that he was Secretary, Road Transport and Highways and also served as Chief Secretary of West Bengal. He has extensive exposure to issues in housing, water supply and infrastructure. Mr Mitra is keenly interested in issues pertaining to the energy and the renewables sector.
Presently he is Professor of Practice in the School of Public Policy, IIT, Delhi.

Mr. Vineet Mittal
Chairman,
AVAADA Group

A social entrepreneur, pioneer and evangelist of sustainable development Vineet has been a vanguard of the clean energy transition in emerging economies across Asia and Africa.

His passion for sustainability originates from the ancient Indian Vedic philosophy of ‘Mata bhoomi putro aham prithiwaya” ‐ The Earth is to be protected like a mother and nurtured for future generations. Avaada is a culmination of his vision of conducting business for higher purpose. Vineet’s socially beneficial public policy campaigns like Community Development Certificate (CDC) and Grow Forest Mechanism (GFM) are very well‐received. In line with SDGs he has launched humanitarian programs aimed towards women empowerment, quality education, healthcare and environment protection in rural environs.

An alumnus of Harvard Business School, Vineet has successfully executed over 2GW of renewable energy projects and is implementing 5GW projects. Avaada has played a major role in helping shape renewable energy policies for emerging economies. He is on B20’s taskforce for financing growth and infrastructure and Energy, Resource Efficiency & Sustainability. He is the former India Chair of World Business Council of Sustainable Development (WBCSD)’s program on Renewables Low Carbon Technology platform. Vineet has been twice recognized as the ‘Solar Man of the Year’ in 2014 and 2012 for his significant contribution towards the solar industry

Mr. Deb A Mukherjee
President Designate,
BCC&I and MD Cenergist Energy Pvt. Ltd.

Mr. Deb Mukherjee is an entrepreneur, professionally qualified as a lawyer, with over 33 years work experience in diverse business domains, engineering systems, information technology solutions and later in energy services for the last 15 years. He was the Executive Chairman of Eaga Energy India Pvt Ltd ( subsidiary of Eaga plc UK FTSE 250 Company) until 2012. He is currently an Investor and Country Director for Power Roll Ltd UK and also the Managing Director of Cenergist Ltd. UK-India Operations, an energy services business with operations in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Italy and now India. He is also incubating an IT start-up Teknowlegion Ltd. in Kolkata, India.  
He has served on various Trade Committees in India and the UK and spoken at several international seminars on Sustainability Issues, Energy Efficiency, Renewables, Water Management and on Business Strategies.  
 
He is the Senior Vice President, The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He also chairs the Energy and Environment Committee of the Chamber.  
 

Dr. Adarsh Nagarajan
Principal Scientist,
National Renewable Energy Lab

Adarsh Nagarajan manages a group that focuses research on Power Systems Design and Planning in Power Systems Engineering Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with a focus on advanced power systems research relating to fast changing energy systems.  
 
He is also a Principal Researcher with deep expertise in: emerging technologies research on distribution systems, especially those associated with energy storage and DERs. Additionally he also leads the business development with strategic partners within the Power Systems Engineering Center at NREL. 
 
His experience encompasses computer modeling of power systems; grid integration of distributed energy resources (DERs); modeling, control, and monitoring of energy storage systems; and the design, system integration, control and dynamics, protection, and seamless grid integration of low-inertia systems (microgrids).  
 
He has authored over thirty technical publications. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and is active in standards creation. Dr. Nagarajan received Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2014, from Arizona State University. 
 
Dr. Nagarajan extensively supports distribution utilities in reaching their goals with adoption to solar (PV), energy storage (ESS) and electric vehicle (EV). He has worked with multiple distribution utilities and to mention some: San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO), Salt River Project (SRP), Arizona Public Service (APS), and Duke Energy.  

Mr. Dr. Anindya Narayan Biswas
Commisioner,
Dpt. Of Power , GoWB

Mr. Arvind Kumar Nautiyal
Joint Secretary,
Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change

Shri Arvind Kumar Nautiyal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change belongs to the Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers of 1991 batch. He has held various important assignments in the Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala, Railway Board and Northern Railway. On Central Deputation from 2016, he currently is in charge of various Divisions of the Ministry viz. “Control of Air Pollution, Coastal Regulation Zone, National Project Director - Society of Integrated Coastal Management, Environmental Impact Assessment (Infrastructure Sector), Himalayan Environment, Environment Education etc.”

Mr. Sambit Nayak
Mitigation Specialist- Asia Pacific,
Climate Technology Centre & Network

Sambit is a clean energy and climate change professional with 11 years of experience in managing and delivering advisory assignments. Prior joining CTCN, he was working with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India as a Program Manager in the Chemicals and Waste Management vertical. He has also worked as a regional manager on clean energy and climate related projects for a climate change advisory firm in Thailand. Sambit is an engineer and MBA in Power Management from National Power Training Institute India. He is also a certified lead auditor in environment management system. 

Dr. Måns Nilsson
Executive Director,
Stockholm Environment Institute

Måns Nilsson is Executive Director at SEI and Professor of Practice at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). Key research interests include the 2030 Agenda, institutions and governance, energy and transport, and innovation policy. Måns combines academic achievement with extensive management experience. In recent years, he helped establish the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and has been closely involved as an advisor to the UN, OECD and the European Commission on the Sustainable Development Goals.  He is a member of the Swedish government’s Scientific Council for Sustainable Development. Måns has slipped over 50 papers past unsuspecting editors of academic journals and has edited two books. He received his MSc in International Economics from University of Lund, Sweden, and his PhD degree in Policy Analysis from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. He serves on the Board of Directors of Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (BTH) and in the Swedish Government’s Scientific Council for Sustainable Development.

Ms. Shoko Noda
Resident Representative,
United Nations Development Programme

Ms. Shoko Noda has been UNDP Resident Representative in India since May 2019, when she took charge of one of UNDP’s largest country programmes globally. She leads country office activities on localizing the Sustainable Development Goals, climate action and biodiversity conservation, digital health and governance, and skilling. She is also a strong advocate for gender equality. Between October 2014 and April 2019, she was UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in the Maldives. Effectively engaging key national interlocutors, political parties, human rights defenders, and UN member states, Ms. Noda was pivotal in taking forward both the development agenda and political dialogue during the crucial transitional post-election period. Prior to that, Ms. Noda led UNDP’s country offices in Nepal and Mongolia. Through the course of her international career with the UN, Ms. Noda has served in diverse and challenging contexts across many geographies, from Pakistan (2005-06) to the Democratic Republic of Congo (2005), the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (2001-02), Kosovo (2000-01) and Tajikistan (1998-2000). Ms. Noda’s working career began in 1995, as a Researcher in the Behavioural Sciences Department with the Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc. in Tokyo. Ms. Noda holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Political Science from Keio University, Japan.

Mr. Ratan P. Watal
Member Secretary,
Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister

Mr. Ratan P. Watal is presently Member Secretary of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. He was earlier Principal Adviser in NITI Aayog. Mr Watal has served in various capacities in Government of India, Prime Minister’s Office, International Monetary Fund and Government of Andhra Pradesh. He has  worked in the Ministries of Human Resources Development, Health, New and Renewable Energy, Home Affairs, External Affairs, Finance and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board. He was a member of the Space Commission,  the Atomic Energy Commission and a Director in the National Highways Authority of India.  He retired as Finance Secretary of the Union Government. 
Mr. Watal is a post graduate in Economics. He has received training at the National Academy of Administration in India and at the International Institute of Public Administration, Paris, where he received a PG diploma in International Relations. 
He handled four Union Government budgets as Secretary, Expenditure and Finance. In NITI, he chaired a Committee to Review the Framework for Digital Payments set up by Ministry of Finance in August 2016. He recently submitted a Report on “Transformation of India’s Gold Market.”  He is also Chairing Committees relating to Merger of Tribunals and rationalisation of Autonomous Bodies of the Central Government. He is also looking at issues relating to Logistics Development, Blue Economy, Resources Efficiency and Circular Economy.
 

Mr. Pradyumna Kumar Padhi
Coordinating Teacher,
Mount Litera Zee School

Mr. Padhi is a teacher by profession and has 15 years of experience in teaching. He holds an M. Sc. Degree in physics from Tirupati university, Andhra Pradesh. 

Dr. Jyoti Prasad Painuly
Sr. Researcher,
UNEP DTU Partnership, DTU

Dr. Jyoti Prasad Painuly is a Senior Researcher at UNEP DTU Partnership (UDP), DTU. He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, and a doctorate in Management with a specialization in Energy Sector from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore. Dr. Painuly has been working with UNEP DTU Partnership (UDP) since 1997 on a variety of projects in energy and environment areas, including energy efficiency and renewable energy in developing countries in Asia and Africa. He was head of the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency at UDP from its inception in September 2013 to September 2016. Between 2011 and 2013, on leave from UDP, he was Chief Economic Advisor at Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, New Delhi, where he was responsible for providing inputs and advice to the Commission on various issues from an economic perspective. Prior to joining UDP, Dr. Painuly was an Associate Professor at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) at Mumbai. He also has rich industry experience- he has worked with power plant equipment suppliers (BHEL and Ansaldo Impianti) for about 9 years during the initial years of his career. One of his renewable energy financing projects in India won the Energy Globe Award in 2007 and the UN-21 Award for efficiency and effectiveness in 2008. 

Dr. Ravinder Palakurthy
Assistant Professor,
Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Combating Climate Change

Mr. Laghu Parashar
Senior Technical Advisor,
GIZ

Mr. S P S Parihar
Chairman,
Central Pollution Control Board

Mr. Parihar has two Master’s degrees in Nuclear Physics and Public Policy from the University of Delhi and the Australian National University respectively. He has also obtained his M.Phil. degree from the University of Delhi. As an IAS officer (1986, Madhya Pradesh), he has served in various capacities in the Government of Madhya Pradesh in power, urban development, rural development, food processing, tourism and health sectors. 
 
He has also served in the Union Ministries of Urban Development, Labour, and Environment as well as the Cabinet Secretariat. He is presently working as the Chairman, Central Pollution Control Board. 

Mr. Shrashtant Patara
Senior Vice President,
Development Alternatives

Shrashtant Patara is a Senior Vice President at Development Alternatives & Chief Executive Officer of Technology and Action for Rural Advancement (TARA), is an architect by training. He has been with the Development Alternatives Group since 1988, providing research expertise, management capability and strategic direction to teams of up to 60 persons engaged in the promotion sustainable technology, creation of green jobs and fulfilment of basic needs amongst the rural poor.  His current work focuses on the incubation of new business models, enterprise packages and capacity building measures; foremost amongst which are initiatives aimed at taking green economy solutions to scale in the areas of renewable energy based rural electrification, affordable housing, clean drinking water and waste recycling. 

Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan
Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Minister of Steel,
Government of India

Dharmendra Pradhan is the Cabinet Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel in the Government of India. On 31st May 2019, Shri Pradhan began his second consecutive tenure at the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas becoming the first such incumbent in the history of independent India. Shri Pradhan was promoted as a Cabinet Minister on September 3rd,2017. As a Member of Parliament, Shri Pradhan currently represents Madhya Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha and was earlier a member of the 14th Lok Sabha.Born on June 26th, 1969, he hails from the city of Talcher in Odisha.

As the Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas of India, Shri Pradhan is attributed with several progressive reforms & initiatives implemented in the last five years including consumer initiatives like PAHAL which is the world’s largest Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme and the #GiveItUp campaign, that was liberally supported by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, aimed at encouraging affluent citizens to surrender their LPG subsidy for the needy receiving a successful response of over 10 million consumers. In an attempt to empower rural India with the clean fuel of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was launched by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas under which 7million LPG connections have been provided to women from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families over the past 5 years.

Pradhan has led to some key decisions in the hydrocarbon sector, which indicates his commitment to the industry. Pradhan, supported by the Union Cabinet, has brought in a new Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy, which through its uniform licensing for explorations and production of all forms of hydrocarbon, open acreage policy and marketing and pricing freedom will enhance domestic oil & gas production with substantial investment in the sector in India and generate sizable employment. In his previous tenure as the Minister for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (2017-19), Shri Pradhan also launched many key initiatives focussing on reskilling and upskilling the manpower of India and focusing on bridging the skill gap for the Indian youth. A post - graduate from Utkal University in Bhubaneswar in Anthropology, he has been actively pursuing several issues concerning the youth, such as unemployment, the lack of skill-based education, rehabilitation and resettlement of farmers, and has played a major role in mobilising the youthin Odisha. Pradhan started as an Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activist in 1983, and has served in ABVP as Secretary. He has also worked as an election in - charge in Bihar and as an in- charge of party affairs in Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Odisha. Following his contribution to society and the party, Pradhan was awarded the ‘Best Legislator Award’, the Utkalmani Gopabandhu Pratibha Samman, 2002-03 and the Odisha Citizens’ Award in 2013.

Mr. Nitin Prasad
Chairman,
Shell Companies

Nitin Prasad is a dynamic and accomplished business leader with 20+ years of cross-cultural professional experience spanning industries from technology to energy and geographies from USA, Singapore to India. Nitin, a Fortune 40 under 40 awardee, has a proven track record of managing large diverse global teams, developing/implementing strategy, innovating and leading change across cross-functional and multi-jurisdictional roles. He is passionate about Shell's purpose of powering progress together for better and cleaner energy and believes collaborations and partnerships are key to solving country-wide growth challenges.
Nitin did his schooling from the Doon School, India before completing an engineering degree from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA and thereafter went on to complete his MBA from INSEAD. He succeeded Dr. Yasmine Hilton on October 2016 as the Chairman of Shell Companies in India. Prior to his current role, Nitin was the Managing Director for Shell Lubricants for the cluster of India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which combined is the 3rd largest lubricants market in the world. This role was preceded by several other roles in Shell across verticals of strategy, marketing, project delivery and supply chain in geographies of APME, APACMEA, China, South East Asia and USA. Nitin is an avid sports enthusiast with an interest in golfing, sailing, skiing and diving. He enjoys traveling, listening to jazz and collecting wines. He currently lives in New Delhi with his two children and his wife.

Ms. Dana Purcarescu
Chargée d'affaires A.I.,
Embassy of France in India

Dana Purcarescu is the Deputy Head of Mission at the French Embassy in India since August, 2019. Previously, she headed the Situation Center of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. In Paris, she served in the Office of the Prime minister and the Directorate for Strategic Affairs, Security and disarmament. A career diplomat, she served in Brussels, Berlin and Washington.  
 

Mr. Manjeev Singh Puri
Former Ambassador,
Embassy of India, Nepal

Manjeev Singh Puri joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1982 and has served as Ambassador of India to the European Union, Belgium, Luxembourg, Nepal and as Ambassador/Deputy Permanent Representative of India to the UN. In addition, he has served twice in Germany (in Bonn and Berlin), in Cape Town, Muscat, Bangkok and Caracas. 

From 2005 to 2009, he headed the UN-Economic & Social Affairs- Division in the Ministry of External Affairs of India and led the Indian delegation for the first meeting of the Global Forum on Migration and Development in Brussels in July 2007 and the presentation of various reports by India at the Human Rights Council. During 2011-2012, when India served on the Security Council, he was a senior member of its delegation. 

Major areas of his experience and professional focus relate to the environment, in particular climate change and sustainable development. He was a lead negotiator for India at the UN on issues relating to the post 2015 development agenda, Sustainable Development Goals and at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012. He was a key member of India's delegation at various Climate Change negotiations, including the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC in Copenhagen in December 2009 and before that at Montreal, Bali, Bonn and Poznan. Furthermore, he was closely involved with India's participation in the G8-G5 Summits from 2005 and he was the points-person on the Indian side at the Major Economies Forum.

Puri has a Masters degree in Management and did his BA (Honours) in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He is on the Advisory Board of TERI

Mr. Dhruba Purkayastha
Director for US India Clean Energy Finance Facility (USICEF),
Climate Policy Initiative’s (CPI)

Dhruba (Dr Purkayastha) is the Director for US India Clean Energy Finance Facility (USICEF) and works with Climate Policy Initiative. USICEF is donor funded and OPIC supported- Project Preparation and Pipeline Development Facility for Distributed Renewable Energy projects in India for enabling debt financing from development financial institutions.  
 
Earlier Dhruba worked with International Finance Corporation (IFC) as the Program Manager for Investment Climate Advisory and with The World Bank as a Senior Specialist in the South Asia Finance and Private sector unit in lending operations and technical assistance for infrastructure and clean energy financing, public private partnerships, SME finance, banking and capital market reforms, private sector development – improving investment climate and competitiveness.  He has over 20 years of experience in credit rating, management consulting, investment banking, and international development financing and has worked on project assignments in many Asian countries. Dhruba has advised a wide range of government and public sector institutions, banks and financial institutions, multilateral institutions, regulators in areas of policy and institutional development for infrastructure, housing, climate and SME financing, developing financial infrastructure for improving access to finance, credit risk management, regulatory compliance and portfolio management. Dhruba is also a guest faculty with business schools in India and has published a number of research papers in areas of financing infrastructure, clean energy and climate investments.  
 
Dhruba is Bachelor of Engineering, Post Graduate in Management from Indian Institute of Management (IIM, Calcutta) and Ph.D. in the area of  Financing Infrastructure Investments in Developing Countries from Indian Institute of Technology  IIT) Delhi.   

Dr. Venkata Ramana Putti
Program Manager,
World Bank Group

Dr. Venkata Ramana Putti is the Program Manager of the Climate and Carbon Finance unit at the World Bank. His previous positions at the World Bank Group include leadership of the Energy Access portfolio at the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), and the Carbon Finance Assist program. Before the World Bank, he held senior executive positions at UNDP/GEF, Winrock International and TERI, managing national/global clean energy and environment program portfolios. Dr. Putti has authored and edited over 80 publications including books, peer-reviewed articles and technical reports. He holds degrees in civil engineering and business management and a Ph.D. in energy studies. 

Mr. Abhishek R Rajan
Additional Vice President and Head Renewable, DSM & EE and Energy Analytics,
BSES Rajdhani Power Limited

 Abhishek has about two decades of experience in Power and Information Technology sectors in India. He started his career with Infosys Technologies Limited, an IT company based in India, where he worked on development of enterprise applications for a major US utility and a technology MNC.  
Abhishek Ranjan is currently leading a team in the areas of Energy Efficiency & Demand Side Management, Renewable Integration and Rooftop Solar, grid level Energy Storage solutions, EV charging infrastructure, Power scheduling & demand forecasting and Energy Analytics at BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL), New Delhi. BRPL serves over 2.4 Million consumers over an area of 750 sq. Km in Southern and Western parts of national capital Territory of Delhi, India. 
BRPL is agile to India’s climate change goals and has made concerted efforts to align its operation with nation’s goals through several green initiatives e.g. transition of its power portfolio with ~20% of renewable share in capacity terms, DSM & EE initiatives, promotion of grid connected DERs, other non-wired alternatives like grid level battery storage etc.  
A community Rooftop Solar initiative (BRPL Solar City Initiative – focussed on residential sector) has been launched in Jan ’18 with over 800 RTS net-metered connection as on date (27 MWp) A Behavioural Energy Efficiency Program covering over 2 Lakh residential consumers in progress in partnership with Oracle Utilities has also been launched, alongside other energy efficiency and conservation programmes, as well as targeted awareness initiatives.  
In his earlier assignments, Abhishek has worked on Detailed Project Reports covering power project economics & financing/techno-commercial aspects, Power potential study, tariff analysis and financial closure of Hydro renewable projects in Indian Himalayan states of Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. 
His areas of expertise include power demand forecasting and power management (system operation functions), capacity building & implementation of rooftop solar, DSM and Energy efficiency interventions for a utility, consumer outreach and management

Mr. Ajay Raghava
Joint Director (CC),
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change

Ajay Raghava has more than two decades experience in the Government and is currently Joint Director in the Climate Change Division of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India. His current responsibilities include coordination of scientific programs like black carbon and long term ecological observatories, matters related to preparation of national greenhouse gas inventories and national communications to UNFCCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, negotiations on transparency of action and support under the Paris Agreement. In the past he has been involved in policy formulation and implementation of river conservation programs in India including National Ganga River Basin Authority’s programme. He has also served at Central Pollution Control Board in the area of environmental planning, industrial pollution control and environment management. 

Ajay has degrees in Civil Engineering, Environmental Planning (SPA Delhi) and Energy & Environment Management (IIT-D). He was a British Chevening Scholar for Environment Management in 1999 at University of Bradford, UK and a Fulbright Fellow for Environmental Policy and law in 2003 at US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC. Ajay was a Hubert Humphrey Fellow for the year 2012-13 at Cornell University, USA in the area of water resources management and river basin planning. 
 
 

Dr. Jairam Ramesh
Member of Parliament,
Rajya Sabha

Jairam Ramesh is a Member of Parliament in the Indian Parliamant’s Lok Sabha, representing Andhra Pradesh. As a member of the Indian National Congress, Ramesh held several Ministerial portfolios during the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) decade-long government—leading the ministries for Rural Development (2011-2014), Drinking Water and Sanitation (2011-2013), Environment and Forests (2009-2011, Union Minister of State – Independent Charge), Commerce and Power (2008-09, Union Minister of State), and Commerce (2006-2009, Union Minister of State). Besides this, in his capacity as an economist and policy expert, he was the advisor to the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister on several issues. He has also served in the Planning Commission of India, Ministry of Industry, and the Advisory Board on Energy, Cabinet Secretariat.

Mr. Vasudevan Rangarajan
Vice President and Corporate Lead - Delhi,
Edelman India

Vasudevan Rangarajan has over fifteen years of experience in diverse sectors including public affairs, media, finance and technology. He has extensive experience in developing and executing research, strategic stakeholder outreach, issues management and advocacy program implementation. At Edelman, he works across domains that include agriculture, climate change communications, defence and aviation. Before joining Edelman, Vasudevan was a senior correspondent at Times Now, a 24-hour national news channel covering conflict, aviation, external affairs and defense, apart from engaging with leaders across the political spectrum. Vasudevan has also worked in the investment banking division of JP Morgan Chase on credit risk management and started his career designing telecom network subsystems at the Telecom R&D center of HFCL, a telecom equipment provider. An electronics and telecommunications engineer, he has a masters degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas. 

Mr. K. N. Rao
Director - Energy, Environment & Sustainability,
ACC Limited

Mr. K.N. Rao is a post graduate Chemical Engineer from IIT Madras having more than 36 years of rich experience in the fields of Energy, Environment and Sustainability. His current assignment includes Energy conservation projects implementation, environment compliance and environment projects implementation, Sustainable Development strategy implementation, CDM projects and renewable energy projects implementation. Prior to this assignment, he was heading the Air pollution control systems business of ACC (Member of Lafarge Holcim Group). 
 
On behalf of ACC worked as a Co-chair for the WBCSD – CSI India for low carbon technology roadmap 2050 for Indian cement industry. Sectoral Expert for BEE for Cement sector for PAT methodology development and Implementation, Co-chair for CII green cement tech, Member of CII Green Council, Member of Sustainability Committee of CII, FICCI, IMC and Bombay Chamber of Commerce. 
 

Dr. M. Sudheendra Rao
Chairman,
Karnataka State Pollution control Board

Dr. M. Sudheendra Rao (B.E., MIE, MCE, FIE, Ph.D.) is the Chairman of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board. He has worked on a number of projects including Krishna River Irrigation Project and Ganga River Rejuvenation Project. He has also delivered a number of lectures. 

Mr. Rajani Ranjan Rashmi
Distinguished Fellow,
The Energy and Resources Institute

Shri Rajani Ranjan Rashmi is a Distinguished Fellow and Programme Director of Integrated Policy Analysis in The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI) where he works in the field of environment policy research. He is a senior IAS officer and has been India’s principal negotiator for climate change for many years. Besides his other responsibilities, Mr Rashmi is on the Sub Committee of the Finance Ministry on Climate Finance and is a member of the Technical Advisory Body of the ICAO

Mr. Vaibhav Rathi
Technical Advisor-Climate Change,
GIZ

Vaibhav Rathi is a Masters of Technology in Energy and Environmental Engineering and holds ISO 17001 certificate for OHSAS. Since 2012 he has Conducted Environmental Impact Assessment of construction, mining and solid waste management projects across India. He has also conducted environmental due diligence of various projects. He has extensively worked with government and industry on industrial and municipal solid waste management. He has also extensively contributed to research and policy at national level for C&D waste management and resource efficiency. He has worked on life cycle assessment and policy advocacy of innovative low carbon cement technology piloted in many countries across the world including India. Currently he is working as a Technical Advisor-Climate Change in GIZ focusing on climate mitigation aspects of waste management in many cities across the country. 

Dr. Vijeta Rattani
Technical Expert,
GIZ

Dr. Vijeta Rattani is Technical Expert on the issues of environment, climate change and natural resource management in Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)the Indo-German Bilateral Cooperation Agency. Earlier she was heading the climate team at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Her work profile include tracking, analysing and writing on different aspects of climate change including global climate negotiations, adaptation. She has been a regular contributer to Down to Earth (DtE) Magazine. She obtained her PhD from JNU focussing on climate politics from European Union perspective. She has been visiting scholar at the Freie University of Berlin, Vrije University Brussels, Bremen International Graduate Institute of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), University of Bremen, University of Bonn and University Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. She is the recipient of the prestigious DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) fellowship during her PhD research.

Ms. Rajasree Ray
Economic Adviser,
Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance

Ms. Rajasree Ray is presently working as Economic Adviser in Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India and handling the matters relating to the climate change finance, sustainable development, agriculture and food management issues. She joined Government of India in 1995 and since then, dealt with various subjects relating to natural resources, agriculture and food policy and climate change. Ms. Ray has been a member of the Indian negotiating team in the UNFCCC and other bodies such as G-20 working groups. Ms. Ray was the member of the Inter-Governmental Committee on Sustainable Development Financing set up by UN General Assembly as a follow-up of Rio + 20 process and the Standing Committee on Finance established under the UNFCCC. She was also a member of the Indian delegation negotiated Paris Agreement in December, 2015. She was on the Board of the Green Climate Fund in 2018. She has authored several papers on issues related to Climate Change Adaptation, Vision for the GCF, Gender and Climate Change and Climate Change Financing. 

Dr. Y B Reddy
Addl. General Manager (PV),
SECI

Mr. John Roome
Regional Director for Sustainable Development,
World Bank Office

John Roome is Regional Director, South Asia Sustainable Development at the World Bank. Before that he was Senior Director for Climate Change. He joined the World Bank in 1989, working initially in Africa, and has since held various positions including Operations and Strategy Director for Global Practices and Cross Cutting Solutions, Director for Sustainable Development in the Bank’s East Asia and the Pacific Region, Operations and Strategy Director in the Bank’s South Asia region and as Operational Quality Director in the Bank’s Africa region. His experience spans water, urban, transport, energy, rural, agriculture, environment, and social sectors, as well as disaster risk management and climate change. Before joining the World Bank, John worked in Europe for Monitor Company, a leading corporate strategy consulting firm, and at Old Mutual, a South African Life Assurance Company. He was educated at Oxford University, where he obtained Masters Degrees in Econometrics and in Management Studies, and the University of Cape Town where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Statistics and Actuarial Science.

Ms. Harshitha S Kumar
Head Micro Grid & Energy Storage,
L&T Construction

Harshitha S Kumar currently heads the Micro-Grid & Energy Storage Business in L&T. Earlier she was incharge of Cluster Operations in Solar Business. Under her leadership some of the major achievements include the execution of 100s of MW of utility scale Solar projects, developing the Micro-Grid and Battery Energy Storage Solution of L&T, execution of one of the World’s largest single roof top power plant of 7.52 MWp capacity in India & Commissioning of India’s first full-fledged Microgrid system. Before joining the solar business team, she was part of L&T Corporate Strategy and had worked deeply along with top management consultants McKinsey & Co and Bain & Co. She had worked with various businesses in infrastructure, hydrocarbon and manufacturing sectors on various aspects such as strategy development & implementation, performance improvement, implementation, performance improvement, organization design and M&A screening. She was also closely involved in formulating and implementing Corporate Strategy for L&T including portfolio decision and organizational restructuring.  
Earlier she was part of the Power Transmission & Distribution business of L&T Construction wherein she worked across functions including Project Management, Operational improvement initiatives, Strategic planning and Perspective plan development for the business unit.  
Harshitha has an MBA (PGDM) from S P Jain Institute of Management and Research and also an M.Tech degree from IIT Madras. 

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs
University Professor,
Columbia University

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed the Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General António Guterres. He spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, where he received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. He has authored numerous bestseller books. His most recent book is A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018). Sachs was twice named as Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders, and was ranked by The Economist among the top three most influential living economists.

Dr. S K Sarkar
Distinguished Fellow and Senior Director,
TERI

Dr S K Sarkar is Distinguished Fellow and Senior Director at TERI. He heads the Natural Resources and Climate Programme and is currently associated with TERI since September 2014. During 1998 till 2003 Dr Sarkar worked as Senior Fellow, TERI, and during 2005-2007 as Director, Division of Regulatory Studies and Governance in TERI. He is a Doctorate in Economics (1991) from the State University of New York.

Dr Sarkar is an IAS officer (retired). He is a former Secretary to the GoI in the Ministry of Water Resources. He served other Ministries including Finance Ministry in the GoI, and worked in various capacities with Government of West Bengal. He worked as District Magistrate, Murshidabad and Member Secretary, West Bengal Pollution Control Board under State Environment Department during 2003-05 and formulated policies on plastic waste management. He also worked as consultant with the ADB and with the World Bank/PPIAF (Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility).  

Dr Sarkar has got several publications to his credit, has authored and edited books on infrastructure issue and has presented a number of important papers in several conferences.

He taught a course on “Public Policy” in the Kabul University (2007), Afghanistan, and also at TERI University.

Dr. O S Sastry
Chief Technical Officer,
Maxop Research & Testing Institute Pvt. Ltd.

After superannuating from national Institute of Solar Energy (NISE), and Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE), Dr. O. S. Sastry worked at International Solar Alliance (ISA) as senior Consultant for one and half years up to 2018. Currently working as Chief Technical Officer for Maxop Research & Testing Institute Pvt. Ltd. in their endower to establish high precision and high capacity laboratory for testing and certification of PV Modules, PV systems and Other components, including field system evaluation. Dr. O. does research in SPV, Power Electronics Engineering and Reliability, Standards. His current project is 'Studying PV Technologies under different climates". 

Mr. Pankaj Kumar Satija
Chief- Regulatory Affairs,
Tata Steel Limited

A graduate mining engineer from IIT(ISM), Dhanbad with PGDBM from XLRI, Pankaj Satija has blended mining operation with framework of Safety, innovation and Environment. A PMP certified professional has undergone Indo German Manager Programme at Germany and Global Advance Management Programme at China. He is a LEAD Fellow of cohort 19. 
 
Pankaj Satija is working for Tata Steel Ltd as Chief Regulatory Affairs. He has more than 24 years of experience in Strategic Planning, Project Management, Mine Planning, Mining Operations, Production and Maintenance. Under his leadership, vetiver plantation experiment was carried out first time in Indian mining industry with collaboration of IIT Kharagpur at Joda East mine of Tata Steel in 2012. He has been in task force for Sustainable Development Framework for Indian Mining Industry constituted by Ministry of Mines. Under his leadership, Sukinda chromite mine of Tata Steel became the first mine in the country where pilot launch of SDF (Sustainable Development Framework) was done in Jan 2016. Under his leadership, Noamundi became the first mine in country where pilot launch for Drone Application in Mine Monitoring (DAMM) was launched in Jan 2017. ‘SABAL - Centre for Abilities’ (2nd in India) was also started at Noamundi under his leadership which is grooming PwD (Person with Disability) for a brighter future by offering various skill development courses. 
 
He is the recipient of FIMI Gem Granite Sustainability Award 2014-15 and Excellent Performer Award   2015 from Legasis. He is member of QP & NOS committee and Governing Board of Skill Council of Mineral Sector. He is a member of National Council of MEAI. He is a recipient of Best Corporate Management Innovative Excellence Award 2016-17 at GeoMinTech symposium, Bhubaneswar. He is the recipient of Bala Gulshan Tandon Excellence Award from FIMI for his significant contribution towards assisting the mine achieving excellence through Sustainable mining for 2016-17.He is the recipient of IME Journal annual award for innovation in 2017.MEAI bestowed Service Excellence Award for his contributions to mineral sector of the country for 2017-18.He has been associated with professional bodies and has numerous papers in National and International Journals to his credit. 

Mr. Jake Schmidt
Managing Director, International Program,
Natural Resources Defense Council

Jake Schmidt directs NRDC’s International program with a team of experts and partners working on climate change, clean energy, biogems, and sustainable development in India, Latin America, Canada, and at the international level. He works closely with the organization’s China team on climate issues, and helps coordinate NRDC’s international efforts to tackle the challenges of health, oceans, and wildlife. He leads NRDC's policy development and advocacy on international climate change, including through the climate negotiations and direct work with key countries around the world. Schmidt holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Muhlenberg College and a M.P.P. in environmental policy, with a certificate in ecological economics from the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.

Ms. Rixa Schwarz
Team Leader International Climate Policy,
Germanwatch e.V.

Rixa Schwarz, Human Ecologist and Physical Geographer (Gothenburg University, Sweden), is the co-team leader for International Climate Policy and supervises the topics mitigation, adaptation & resilience and international partnerships. She follows the UN climate negotiations since pre-Copenhagen days and has lead projects on climate and security and international NGO dialogues. 
Furthermore, Rixa has long-standing work experience as Programme Coordinator - Climate Change Group at Centre for Environment Education India, where she deals with climate education as well as climate and energy policies. 
 
Rixa's current main focus of work is UNFCCC process, climate and energy politics of India and Indo-German cooperation, multi-stakeholder partnership and climate equity. 

Mr. Amitava Sen
Assistant Vice President (Sustainability & Clean Technology),
Wbsedcl

Mr. Suvojoy Sengupta
Partner,
McKinsey & Company

Suvojoy Sengupta, Partner and Leader of the firm's renewables work within the Electric Power & Natural Gas Practice in India.
Suvojoy brings more than 25 years of experience across all aspects of energy markets and value chains to his role at McKinsey. He has advised clients in the oil and gas, power, and renewables sectors on strategy, technology, operations, and organizational transformation across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. His expertise covers fuel marketing, liquified natural gas and natural gas, power generation, transmission, and renewables.
Some of his recent client work includes advising a five-gigawatt renewables independent power producer on growth strategy and operational improvement, evaluating investment opportunities in stressed power generation assets for an Indian industrial major, defining the strategic roadmap for India's national gas company, and leading the organizational transformation of a leading energy-efficiency-services company. He has also engineered the rapid turnaround of the captive-power-plant operations of a leading industrials group and undertaken investment planning for multiple global clients in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the United States in the power and renewable-energy space.
Suvojoy is a member of FICCI's power committee and regularly shares his expertise as a speaker at energy industry fora and conferences. He has coauthored several landmark McKinsey publications on the energy sector in India.

Ms. Aditi Shah
Director,
Aditi Aircoditioning Pvt. Ltd.

Aditi Shah is a second generation entrepreneur and is the Director of Aditi Airconditioning Pvt. Ltd., Aditi Aircon is a 30 year old HVAC Contracting firm based out of Ahmedabad with their forte in After Sales Services. Aditi is a graduate in Engineering, and also has a diploma in Business Law. Aditi has attended Indian School of Business for a Goldman Sachs sponsored course on Women Entrepreneurship. Aditi is active on various technical and networking platforms like ISHRAE & ASHRAE. She is the current treasurer for ISHRAE Ahmedabad Chapter and the Secretary for ASHRAE Western India Chapter. She is the recipient of Times Power Women 2019 award. Aditi has been striving towards implementing IoT based predictive AC maintenance system at her organization.

Mr. Shwetal Shah
Technical Advisor,
Gujarat Climate Change Department

Mr. Shwetal Shah is the Technical Advisor – Climate Change for the Government of Gujarat, India. He works for the State of Gujarat in Climate Policy, adaptation and mitigation strategies and climate finance. He has been instrumental in drafting renewable energy policies, State Action Plan on Climate Change, creation of Covenant of Mayors of Gujarat and state-wide climate change awareness campaign. He is qualified in M. Tech. (Energy Management) and M. Sc. (Environment Management) from Forest Research Institute University (FRI), Dehradun. Earlier during 2010 to 2011, he was the Chief Minister’s Fellow under the then Chief Minister and now Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi and worked on crucial issues Waste Management, Marine Debris and Green Buildings. He is visiting faculty at School of Liberal Studies (SLS), Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU). He has delivered more than 100 talks and presentations on various issues of climate change, environment management, disaster management in UN, Universities, Conferences, Seminars, at National and International levels. He has also written papers on carbon neutral town concept, vision for Sustainable Development Goal 2030, District Adaptation framework, Climate Change Action Plan etc. He has been trained as Climate Leader by former US Vice-President Mr. Al Gore in Los Angeles during 2018. 
 

Mr. Jasmine Shah
Vice Chairperson,
Dialogue and Development Commission, Delhi Government

Mr Jasmine Shah joined the Dialogue and Development Commission Govt. of NCT of Delhi as Vice Chairperson in November 2018. Mr Shah has wide experience working on urban governance and policy issues and has been advising the Government of NCT of Delhi since 2016 on education budget transparency and transport policy reforms. He has also worked on several crucial transport reforms of the Delhi government such as the Electric Vehicle Policy, Common Mobility Card, bus route rationalization and last mile connectivity initiative, large-scale induction of electric buses, among other projects. Mr Shah has previously worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) where he was the Deputy Director of its South Asia office, and prior to that at the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. Mr Shah holds B.Tech.  and M.Tech. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras and a MPA degree from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, New York, where he was a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow.

Ms. Priya Shankar
India Director, Environment Program,
Bloomberg Philanthropies

Priya Shankar is India Director for the Environment Program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, where she leads the organization's air quality work in India. She previously led Bloomberg Philanthropies' program on the India Smart Cities Challenge. Prior to that, she led India work for Urban Age, an international research program into the future of cities based at LSE Cities, a research centre at the London School of Economics. She has also worked for Policy Network, a think-tank, where she worked on issues of governance, globalization and international affairs, managing an international dialogue initiative among China, India, Brazil, Russia, the United States and European countries. She previously worked for Deutsche Bank's non-profit Alfred Herrhausen Society, where she helped set up an award for community initiatives in cities. She has co-edited and contributed to a number of publications and reports including Governing Urban Futures (LSE 2014), Handmade Urbanism (Jovis, 2013), Living in the Endless City (Phaidon, 2011), and Integrated City-Making (LSE 2008). 

Mr. Ajay Shankar
Distinguished Fellow and Former Secretary, DIPP, GoI,
The Energy and Resources Institute

He has rich and varied experience in public service for over forty years as a member of the Indian Administrative Service.  He has served in the Government of India in key policy making positions in the areas of industry and energy.  He has been Secretary, DIPP (Department of Industrial, Policy and Promotion) in the Government of India as well as Member Secretary, NMCC (National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council).

He had earlier worked in the Ministry of Power for many years and held the posts of Special Secretary, Additional Secretary and Joint Secretary. He played a key role in piloting the reform legislation, the Electricity Act 2003 and the major programme for completing the universalization of electricity access launched in 2005 to electrify 1,25,000 villages. Village electrification has now been completed. He was closely involved in the design of the National Solar Mission at the time of its inception. He writes on policy issues and his articles have been appearing in the national economic papers.

Ms. Disha Sharma
Energy Efficiency Analyst- India,
International Energy Agency

Ms. Sharma is currently working as an Energy Efficiency Expert –India with the International Energy Agency. She has almost 7 years of experience in clean energy and environment sector. She is currently engaged with the IEA in managing the energy efficiency work programs and portfolio with Bureau of Energy Efficiency in India Prior to joining IEA, Ms. Sharma worked with International Institute for Energy Conservation and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) where she worked on developing the Energy Productivity Roadmap for India and on energy benchmarking, GHG scenario modelling and policy advocacy with special focus on the buildings sector. During the time at TERI, she managed many program on improving energy efficiency in both commercial and residential building sector in India. Ms. Sharma is an Electrical Engineer and holds a Master’s Degree in Energy Studies from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Dr. J V Sharma
Director - Forestry & Biodiversity Division, TERI,
India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

Retired Indian Forest Officer, Dr. J. V. Sharma has nearly 34 years of experience in leading, coordinating and managing projects and activities in the forestry and natural resource sector. Dr. Sharma is currently Director of the Forestry and Biodiversity Division at TERI. He has directed and advised more than 20 projects for multilateral financial institutions, bilateral donors and governments and has extensive knowledge of the Indian forestry and natural resource sector.  Dr. Sharma has been with TERI for the past nine years and coordinates a large group of multidisciplinary experts working on issues pertaining to forest and natural resource governance, forest livelihoods including Non-Timber Forest Product harvesting and marketing, natural capital valuation, and carbon financing. He has led the preparation of ten project design documents under a CDM project for ten forest districts in Uttar Pradesh and initiated REDD readiness projects. 

Dr. Sharma also has extensive expertise in global forest policy and international negotiations and has been a negotiator on behalf of Government of India to the United Nations under the UNFF process. As Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Forest Policy and Forest International Cooperation, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), he was responsible for international cooperation including negotiations. 

Mr. Ashwin Shroff
Executive Chairman,
Excel Industries Limited

Mr. Shroff after Graduating in Chemistry from Bombay University in 1965 joined Excel Industries. Moving through various operational and functional departments in Excel Industries Limited, he rose to become its Chairman and Managing Director. He has been an active spokesman of the Indian Chemical Industry, interacted with the various government bodies and shared his experience in shaping the industry- specific policies. He has also been associated with Research Institutes like NIIST and IICT. He has been a regular participant in various study groups, conferences, seminars and has contributed papers on diverse subjects, and articles in leading journals. He is also Chairman of Transpek Industry Limited and Transpek-Silox Industry Limited.

Dr. Anand Shukla
Senior Thematic Advisor - Energy Climate Change and Development Division,
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

Dr. Anand Shukla is working as the Senior Thematic Advisor at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), New Delhi. Having about 25 year of working experience, he is responsible for Climate Change mitigation projects in the field of energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean air.  He has written many research papers and articles in various journals and edited three books covering various dimensions of renewable energy in developing countries. 

Mr. Damandeep Singh
Director,
CDP India

Before founding CDP India in 2012, Daman has spent over two decades writing and researching on environment and development issues in India. He worked as an independent researcher and journalist primarily on environment and climate change issues, executing projects for ERM UK, Worldwatch Institute, The Climate Group, Bureau of Energy Efficiency and Suzlon. Prior to consultancy work, he was heading Research and Mission Programme Division of the National Geographic Channel in India for five years. He started his career as a journalist and has worked with The Times of India, The Pioneer, Business Standard and The Indian Express. 
 

Mr. Devesh Singh
Chief Risk Officer,
PTC India Financial Services

A designated Risk Officer at PFS, Mr. Devesh Singh is entrusted with the responsibility of overall management of risk functions. Mr. Singh joined PTC Group in June’07 and had been entrusted with task of managing treasury investments, resource mobilization and banking at PTC India Ltd. Mr Singh joined PFS on October’11 in its Business Development and Debt Syndication function. In July’15, he was designated as Risk Officer at PFS. Mr. Singh has a working experience of 13 years. Prior to his current assignment, he has worked with Standard Chartered Bank and IDBI Bank in their Corporate banking division. Mr. Singh is a MBA – Finance from ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad.

Mr. Vikas Singh
CTO,
Hero Youon Private Limited (Hexi)

Vikas Singh, Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.), is an experienced Technology Leader with a demonstrated history of working in the Public Bike Sharing, health wellness & fitness industry. In the past, he has been a software programmer for nearly a decade. In his current role at Hero Motor Company, he is responsible for innovating and devising Technology, for developing world-class IT products. He also provides Technology Support for efficient first and last mile transportation solutions, to enable sustainable mobility, reduce carbon emissions and improve the quality of life for people. 

Mr. Gurdeep Singh
Chairman & Managing Director,
NTPC Limited

Gurdeep Singh with over three decades of experience in power generation sector is spearheading NTPC. He also holds additional charge of Chairman, Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC). Prior to taking over the charge of CMD, NTPC, Shri Singh was Managing Director, Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Limited. He started his career with NTPC Limited and has worked at CxO/Senior positions in Indian companies (GSECL, IDFC and CESC) as well as in multi-national companies (Powergen, CLP and AES). He has worked in different areas of Power Sector ranging from Business development, Projects and Operations. He has undergone management education program at IIM Ahmedabad (India). He has received management and leadership training from global institutions like Saïd Business School-Oxford (UK), Harvard-Kennedy School USA, Darden School of Management Virginia USA, Singapore Civil Services College (Singapore) and ISB Hyderabad (India). Shri Singh has launched a series of initiatives to sustain NTPC's growth and bring about cultural changes necessary to maintain NTPC's position as a leading global power company. His thrust areas are minimizing environmental footprint, maximizing sustainability efforts and a focussed approach of ‘Low Cost, Low Emission and Highest Safety’. 

Mr. Jarnail Singh
Deputy Director,
MacArthur Foundation

Jarnail Singh recently joined the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as their Deputy Director (India). He co-leads the Foundation’s climate initiatives in India. Most recently, Jarnail led the India team of The Climate Group, a UK-based international non-profit and was the youngest member of their executive leadership team. He specialises in business-led climate action, international climate policy and using strategic communications as a lever for change. Previously, Jarnail has worked with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). He also advises various boards and start-up incubators in his personal capacity. He was selected as a Feldman Fellow to pursue an MA from the Heller School, Brandeis University (USA) and holds an MS in Environmental Studies from TERI School, Delhi. 
 

Mr. Mudit Kumar Singh
Principal Chief Conservator of Forest & Head of Forest Force Chhattisgarh and Nodal Officer,
Chhattisgarh State Centre for Climate Change

Mr. Mudit Kumar Singh studied at Lucknow University and Dresden University of Technology, Germany. He is a DAAD Fellow. Presently he is working as Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force and Director, State Forest Research and Training Institute and Nodal Officer, State Centre for Climate Change, Raipur in Chhattisgarh State.  
 
He worked as ADG, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, Dehra Dun in the Government of India; Managing Director, Chhattisgarh Infrastructure Development Corporation then as Director, Chhattisgarh Academy of Administration; Addl. PCCF (Land Management & Nodal Officer - Forest Conservation Act), Managing Director, Chhattisgarh State Minor Forest (Trading and Development) Co-operative Federation and PCCF cum HoFF, Govt. of Chhattisgarh. He belongs to the 1984 Batch of the IFS, allotted to Chhattisgarh Cadre.  
 
As a member of Indian Forest Service he has held key assignments in different capacity in M.P. State and in the Government of India. He has wide experience in capacity building and training, Project implementation, Watershed development and socio-economic development in JFM Programmes.  
 
He was awarded Republic Day Medal by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1993; Rotary International Citation for dedicated public service; ICFRE Award for Excellence – 2002 in Community Forestry and in 2006 he has been selected for the DAAD VIP Tracer Study, being one of 25 awardees world wide out of 4000 DAAD Fellows. In 2018, he was awarded Distinguished Alumni Award by University of Lucknow.  
 
His work in Participatory Management at Jhabua has been internationally acclaimed and 3 Books have been written on his work by Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM).  
 
He has authored a Book titled “Managing Non-Timber Forest Products for Sustainability of JFM” which is published from Germany, another Book titled “Forest Entomology In India – Current Important Problems”, besides publishing several research papers in Journals of repute.  
 
His area of specialization is Community Forestry, NWFP Management, Forest Certification, Forest Conservation Act and Human Resource Development. He was Project Advisory Committee Member for the Canadian CBED – CECI Project of Uttaranchal State and also the Organizing Secretary of the 21st Asia Pacific Forestry Commission Meeting held in April 2006 in India. He initiated Bamboo based Common Facility Centers under the Innovation Programme of National Bamboo Mission which is providing value addition and direct employment to local artisans in the State. He also formulated largest Agro-forestry Project for Country being implemented in Bihar, funded by then Planning Commission as Bihar had problem of Sisoo mortality, with introduction of Poplars during posting in ICFRE.  
 
He has been Visiting faculty to Göttingen and Dresden University in Germany; International Agriculture University (IAC) Wageningen Netherlands; World Forestry Institute – Hamburg Germany; Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy – Dehra Dun; Indian Institute of BioSocial Research and Development (IBRAD), Kolkata; Lal Bahadur Shashtri National Academy of Administration – Mussouriee; Uttaranchal Academy of Administration (ATI) – Nainital; and Indian Institute of Public Administration – New Delhi etc. 
 

Ms. Tamiksha Singh
Associate Fellow,
The Energy and Resources Institute

Tamiksha is a multi-disciplinary researcher with experience working on issues related to climate change, climate policies, sustainable development and gender issues. Tamiksha is qualified in finance and specialized in climate finance and is part of TERI’s Earth Science and Climate Change Division. She is currently working on projects for the Networked Carbon Markets initiative, creating baselines and carbon crediting and pricing methodologies for private sector climate initiatives, and is developing a comprehensive landscaping of the various climate finance policy instruments and programmes in India, to assess their impact on generating investments for climate actions. 

Mr. Amal Sinha
Chief Executive Officer,
BSES Rajdhani Power Limited

Mr. Jayant Sinha
Chairperson of the Standing Committee,
For Finance and the BJP Lok Sabha

Shri Jayant Sinha is Chairperson of the Standing Committee for Finance and the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. He first won his seat by 159,000 votes in May 2014 and was reelected by over 478,000 votes in May 2019. His 2019 vote share was 67.4%, among the highest in India’s recent parliamentary elections. Mr. Sinha represents a constituency of approximately 2.5 million people spanning remote rural areas, fast-growing cities, as well as some of India’s largest coal mines and power plants. As an MP, Mr. Sinha has ushered in many notable innovations including a district-wide scorecard-based monitoring system, centralized mid-day meals for primary schools, and humane land acquisition policies.

Dr. Preeti Soni
Chief-Climate Change, Resilience & Energy,
United Nations Development Programme

Dr. Preeti Soni has a wealth of programme, policy and research experience in the area of Climate Change and Sustainable Development. She has been working in this thematic area for more than 25 years.   
At present, she is working Chief, Climate Change, Resilience and Energy at UNDP India. She has worked as Advisor (Climate Change), and the Resource Person for the UN Solution Exchange Environment Community at UNDP. She has also worked as Area Convenor and Research Associate at TERI.  
Dr Soni has Ph.D. from Institute of Environmental Studies, Virje University, Amsterdam and Institute of New Technology, United Nations University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.  She has done Masters in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. 
 
She has authored and published a number of papers in the area of Climate Change, Energy & Environment. 

Mr. Neil Spann
Managing Director,
Power Roll

Neil has a professional services background and has held key roles in large energy businesses. He was Director of Group Finance and Investor Relations of Eaga plc at the time of its purchase April 2011. He initially stayed with the enlarged business to become the Finance Director of a £1.2bn business employing some 12,000 employees. Neil has specific experience in financing large scale renewables and PV projects. He joined Power Roll in January 2014 and is responsible for all aspects of Power Roll’s ongoing development and performance. 

Mr. Ganesh Srinivasan
Chief Executive Officer,
Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited

Dr. SC Srivastava
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering,
Department of Electrical Engineering,IIT, Kanpur

Prof. Nicholas Stern
Professor of Economics & Government; Chair, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment,
London School of Economics & Political Science

IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government; Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment; Head of the India Observatory at the London School of Economics. He was President of the Royal Economic Society (2018-19) and President of the British Academy (2013- 2017). He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (June 2014). He has held academic appointments in the UK at Oxford, Warwick, the LSE and abroad at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Ecole Polytechnique and the Collège de France in Paris, the Indian Statistical Institute in Bangalore and Delhi, and the Peopleʼs University of China in Beijing. He was Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 1994-1999, and Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at the World Bank, 2000-2003. He was knighted in 2004, made a cross-bench life peer in 2007 and appointed Companion of Honour in 2017 for services to economics, international relations and tackling climate change.

He has published more than 15 books and 100 articles. Most recent books: “Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency and Promise of Tackling Climate Change”, MIT Press (2015), and “How Lives Change. Palanpur, India and Development Economics” (with Himanshu and Peter Lanjouw), Oxford University Press (2018).

Mr. Vivek Subramanian
Co-Founder & Executive Director,
Fourth Partner Energy

Vivek is the Co-Founder and Executive Director at Fourth Partner Energy (FPE). At FPE, Vivek is primarily responsible for Fundraising, Strategy, Risk, Corporate Development and Human Resources. Over the past 9 years, Vivek has been instrumental in building FPE into India’s largest distributed solar platform managing power requirements for over 100 marquee C&I clients.

Vivek is passionate about driving Renewable Energy adoption not only as a means for clients to become power independent, but also combat climate change. Vivek started Power@₹1 at FPE in 2018 wherein rural schools and primary health centres in India enjoy the benefit of solar electricity by paying just ₹1 per unit of power. Vivek believes in building a truly triple bottom line business – attractive returns to investor partners while maximizing social and environmental impact.

Prior to starting FPE, Vivek was the part of the founding team at Avigo Capital, an Indian SME focused PE fund managing $375 million. Vivek was responsible for end to end investment management and fundraising at Avigo for close to 8 years. Vivek started his career with Accenture where he spent 6 years as a management consultant advising clients across various industries such as Engineering, Cement, Pharma, Transport & Consumer products.

Vivek has an MBA from INSEAD and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

Vivek is a sports enthusiast and is passionate about long distance running having completed over 20 half marathons. Vivek was also featured as a “Young Turk” on CNBC TV18.

Prof. Kazuhiko Takeuchi
President,
Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES)

Kazuhiko Takeuchi graduated from the Department of Geography, the University of Tokyo in 1974. He obtained M.Agr. and Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Agriculture, the University of Tokyo. He served as a Professor at the Asian Natural Environmental Science Center, and as Professor at the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Science and as Director and Professor, Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3S) at the University of Tokyo. He also served as a Vice-Rector and Senior Vice-Rector at the United Nations University from 2008 to 2016. He was Director and a Project Professor of IR3S at the University of Tokyo from 2017 to 2019. He took up the position as Project Professor of the Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI) at the University of Tokyo in April 2019. He has served as President, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) since 2017. He has served, inter alia, as a Vice-President of the Science Council of Japan, Chair of the Central Environmental Council, Government of Japan, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sustainability Science (Springer Nature). Prof. Takeuchi specialises in landscape ecology, landscape planning, and sustainability science.

Mr. Bimal Tandon
Director Engineering - India & Standards/Regulations South Asia,
Carrier Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Limited

Currently Director of Engineering with Carrier Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Limited, Mr. Bimal Tandon is responsible for India Engineering and Standards/Regulations, South Asia Pacific. He started his career with Hindustan Aeronautics which public sector undertaking of Ministry of Defence and contributed in R&D and indigenization of equipment for country’s prestigious aerospace programs for around 11 years. Next 9 year he spent in automotive industry and worked for American multinational to expand Indian operation through development of Brake, Fuel and HVACR systems and establishing quality management system across the operations in India, Asia Pacific and Globally. For last 12 year he has been working with HVAC industry and has supported his company for launching and localizing various products to support make in India strategy. Also supports RAMA for Standards and Labelling programs and works closely with BIS and BEE to represent manufacturer’s view point. 
 

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Mr. Lokendra Thakkar
General Manager and Coordinator,
State Knowledge Management Center on Climate Change

Lokendra Thakkar is presently the General Manager at the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainable Development and State Coordinator, State Knowledge Management Centre on Climate Change (SKMCCC) at EPCO, Department of Environment Government of Madhya Pradesh. He is leading the team at SKMCCC to revise the State Climate Change Action Plan (SAPCC) for the state. Under his leadership the State knowledge Management Centre on Climate Change (SKMCCC), EPCO has bagged First Prize of National Water Mission and ToI-JSW Earth Care Award, the two most prestigious national awards on climate change.

His areas of interest are policy related issues to Climate Change, Natural Resources Management especially on water and biodiversity conservation. As MemberCoordinator of the State level Technical Core Group, he prepared the State Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. Prior to this assignment he worked for more than three years as Manager, Information Resource and Public Awareness at the Disaster Management Institute, Bhopal where he was involved in preparing the model District Emergency Management Plan of Khandwa, an earthquake-prone district of M.P.  

Lokendra is a LEAD Fellow from Cohort-6 and also Lead present and mentor of the Al Gore's Climate Reality initiatives. A broadcaster and communicator by aptitude, Mr. Thakkar has been actively associated with broadcasting as a news reader and anchor for more than twenty seven years and has produced various features and documentaries of national and international importance on environmental and developmental issues and has anchored live shows on scientific and environmental issues on radio and television. He has an M.Phil in Natural Resource Management from Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, India. He completed his postgraduation in Chemistry after obtaining a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree. He also has a Bachelor’s in Journalism and Mass Communication. He is pursuing his Ph.D. on India's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and its implications at the state-level.

Mr. Cherian Thomas
Regional Leader, South Asia & Pacific and National Director, India,
World Vision

Cherian Thomas is Regional Leader for the South Asia Pacific Region of World Vision International, which covers 10 countries in Asia and Pacific Islands. He is also National Director and CEO, WV India, a humanitarian and development organisation working for the well-being of vulnerable children. In India, he leads a team of around 1,500 staff, serving 26 lakh children in projects across 142 districts. Cherian has over 33 years’ experience in diverse fields, and before joining WV India in August 2015, served as CEO, IDFC Foundation, where he oversaw the working of the Foundation and its joint ventures with the Governments of Karnataka, Delhi and Uttarakhand. Cherian comes with extensive experience in the fields of infrastructure, banking, project finance, policy advocacy, capacity building, programme support and advisory services for government clients and community engagement programmes. Apart from IDFC Limited, where he worked for 18 years, he has worked with Tata Industries Limited, ICICI Limited, SCICI Limited and Citibank in the areas of corporate finance, project finance and banking. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering (Honors) and Masters in Management Studies in Finance from the University of Mumbai, India.

Mr. Sameer Tirkar
Principal - Asia Pacific,
ResponsAbility Investments

Sameer is a senior renewable energy and climate financing professional with 14 years’ experience in developing financial solutions for companies in sectors such as climate finance, infrastructure and financial sector. Currently, he is part of a global development focused asset manager pioneering financing to renewable energy and positive climate impact companies. Sameer leads responsAbility's climate finance portfolio in Asia Pacific which provides financing for renewable energy projects / companies and organisations operating in the energy efficiency value chain and covers Asia Pacific.

Prof. Geetam Tiwari
Professor,
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

Geetam Tiwari is MoUD Chair Professor for Transport Planning at the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Delhi. She obtained Master of Urban Planning and Policy, and Ph.D. in Transport Planning and Policy, from the University of Illinois, Chicago. She has received the degree of Doctor of Technology honoris causa from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden in 2012. She has been Adlerbretska Guest Professor for sustainable urban transport at the Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden 2007-2010. She has been working in the area of traffic and transport planning and traffic safety focusing on pedestrians, bicycles and bus systems. She has worked with city, state and national government in India on public transport and road safety projects. She has over 100 publications in peer reviewed journals, has co-edited four books on transport planning and safety. She is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion since 2009. She is on the editorial board of Journal of Transport and Health, Journal of Safety Research. She is on the board of SLoCAT, an international NGO promoting low carbon transport systems, IATSS forum and LEAD India, independent director on the board of Urban Mass Transit Company. 

Mr. Vinod Kumar Tiwari
Teacher,
Tata DAV Public School

Mr Vinod Kumar Tiwari from Tata DAV Public School, Jamadoba has a Master’s degree in Science and Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree with specialization in geography with a teaching experience of 20 years. Mr. Tiwari plays a vital role as the coordinating teacher of his school for ‘The Green School Project’ from phase I to present.  

Prof. Sachchida Nand Tripathi
professor,
Indian Institute of Technology

Sachchida (Sachi) Nand Tripathi currently is Professor and Head of Civil Engineering Department at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He had his Ph. D. from Reading University and post-docs at Bhabha Atomic Research Center and Oxford University. He obtained his B. Tech. in Civil Engineering from IIT-BHU (Formerly IT-BHU). He has been a Senior Fellow at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Sachi has been awarded NASI-SCOPUS young scientist award 2009 in Earth Sciences, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award 2014 in Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences and is an elected fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering and The National Academy of Sciences India and Distinguished Alumnus of Banaras Hindu University. He has visiting Professor assignments to many universities including University of Tokyo (Japan), Orleans University (France) and Georgia Institute of Technology (USA). He is the Principal Investigator of National Aerosol Facility at IITK the first in country and indeed in academic institutions in Asia which will help quantify the aerosol source term simulators of 'Severe Reactor Accident Scenario' and their impact on the environment. 

Mr. Aditya Trivedi
Director - Business Development (India),
AES Corporation

Mr. David Turk
Head of the Strategic Initiatives Office,
International Energy Agency (IEA)

Dave Turk joined the IEA in September 2016 and is currently the Head of the Strategic Initiatives Office. He formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Climate and Technology at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he coordinated the Department’s international clean energy efforts. He also previously served as Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S. Department of State, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Congressional Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, and in various capacities in the U.S. Congress.

Lord Adair Turner
Chair,
Energy Transitions Commission

Lord Turner chairs the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of major power and industrial companies, investors, environmental NGOs and experts working out achievable pathways to limit global warming to well below 2˚C by 2040 while stimulating economic development and social progress.

He was chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking until January 2019, where he remains a Senior Fellow.  He is Chairman of Chubb Europe, and a Trustee at the British Museum. In December 2018 he joined the Advisory Board of Envision Energy, a Shanghai-based group focussed on renewable energy, batteries and digital systems.

From 2008-2013, Lord Turner chaired the UK’s Financial Services Authority, and played a leading role in the post crisis redesign of global banking and shadow banking regulation. 

Lord Turner has held high profile roles in public policy: he was Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (1995-2000); chairman of the UK Low Pay Commission (2002-2006); chairman of the Pensions Commision (2003-2006); he was the first chairman of the Climate Change Committee (2008-2012) an independent body to advise the UK Government on tackling climate change. The recommendations set out in their first report "Building a low-carbon economy” were adopted in 2009.

He became a cross bench member of the House of  Lords in 2006. Amongst his business roles, Lord Turner was at McKinsey&Co (1982-1995);  was Vice-Chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe (2000-2006) and a Non-Executive Director of a number of companies, including Standard Chartered plc (2006-2008).

He is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Financial Studies (Frankfurt) and a Visiting Fellow at the People’s Bank of China School of Finance, Tsinghua  University (Beijing). He writes regularly for Project Syndicate, and has published “Between Debt and the Devil” (Princeton 2015), and Economics after the Crisis (MIT 2012). He  is an honorary fellow of The Royal Society, and received an Honorary Degree from Cambridge University in 2017.

Ms. B V Umadevi
IFS, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest,
Chhattisgarh Forest Department

Smt. B.V. Umadevi is an officer from Indian forest service of 1987 batch, Chhattisgarh cadre. Currently is working as the Additional Principle Chief Conservator of Forest, Chhattisgarh Forest Department. She has worked in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in Forest department in various other capacities. Smt. Umadevi has also been a part of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration Mussoorie as a faculty where she has tried to sensitise officers of various services towards forest and environment issues. She has also worked in MoEFCC as AIG and currently she has been designated as Additional Secretary in the same ministry. Apart from masters in Botany from Delhi University she also holds a Master s degree in public policy from George Mason University, USA. 

Dr. Haraprasad Vaddiparthi
Advisor (Projects),
South East Constructions Company Pvt Ltd

Dr. Haraprasad has more than four decades experience in the fields of WASH & Environment in 14 countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle-East. He was formerly a Senior Scientist, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and served as an Independent Consultant for the state and central governments, private and public-sector clients, research and training institutes, ADB, and the World Bank projects in India and abroad. He served the United Nations as Advisor (Water & Sanitation) in different countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle-East, until 2016, making major contributions towards the institutional development of core administrative structures, Sector assessments, developing Sector policy, strategy, legal framework, Sector planning, Finance and Investment planning, Capacity building, International Aid and Sector coordination, both in humanitarian and development settings. He is an elected Chair of the International Water Association (IWA) Specialist Group on Drinking Water Treatment Plants, a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India), and a Member of prestigious professional bodies worldwide. He had served as an External Evaluator of innovative projects on DST’s India Innovation Growth Programme 2.0 (http://www.indiainnovates.in/partners_implementation.aspx). Author of more than 42 papers, reports and publications, and widely traveled across 32 countries. Dr. Haraprasad has more than four decades experience in the fields of WASH & Environment in 14 countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle-East. He was formerly a Senior Scientist, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and served as an Independent Consultant for the state and central governments, private and public-sector clients, research and training institutes, ADB, and the World Bank projects in India and abroad. He served the United Nations as Advisor (Water & Sanitation) in different countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle-East, until 2016, making major contributions towards the institutional development of core administrative structures, Sector assessments, developing Sector policy, strategy, legal framework, Sector planning, Finance and Investment planning, Capacity building, International Aid and Sector coordination, both in humanitarian and development settings. He is an elected Chair of the International Water Association (IWA) Specialist Group on Drinking Water Treatment Plants, a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India), and a Member of prestigious professional bodies worldwide. He had served as an External Evaluator of innovative projects on DST’s India Innovation Growth Programme 2.0 (http://www.indiainnovates.in/partners_implementation.aspx). Author of more than 42 papers, reports and publications, and widely traveled across 32 countries.

Dr. Annapurna Vancheswaran
Senior Director,
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)

As Senior Director, Communication Outreach and Advocacy Unit (COAU) at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the focus of Dr Vancheswaran's work is mainly in the area of global sustainable development and includes interactions with international and Indian organisations, Government Departments, NGOs and the private sector with particular application to the diverse problems of India.

The Unit that she leads is also involved in cutting-edge research on education for sustainable development. Various projects undertaken by the Unit have tremendous reach and influence on school and college students in addition to other stakeholders.

Since 2010, she has been associated with TERI University as an Adjunct Faculty and a Guest Faculty at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Shillong, Meghalaya, India.  

In addition to her above responsibility, from 2009 - 2015 she was additionally appointed as Vice-President, TERI, North America to oversee TERI’s programmes and activities in the region.

Given her two decades of experience in sustainable development, she is nominated as the Advisory Group Member for the Regional Hub South Asia, GRI South Asia and the Member of the Expert Group for the Year 2017 of the ICSI CSR Excellence Awards. She had been the Advisory Council Member of Bayer CropScience Child Care Programme as well international advisor to on sustainable reporting for Abengoa.  In addition to her engagement with Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) on issues of Corporate Governance and Social Responsibility, she is a  also the Member of Social Responsibility Sectional Committee of Bureau of Indian Standards since November 2016.   She also had represented the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India as Member of the Expert Group in drafting the National Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Business.

Dr Vancheswaran has a Ph.D in Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and a Bachelor of Science from the Delhi University.

Ms. Ruchi Varma
Founder & CEO,
HUMANQIND

Ruchi is the founder of HumanQind, a social enterprise cocreating equitable and compassionate cities. An architect-urban designer by training, she is a sustainable cities practitioner committed to people centric approaches to development. With over 12 years of experience, she adopts a human-centered approach in alignment to Sustainable Development Goals and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She has an interdisciplinary skill set across program strategy and development, systems thinking, urban planning & design, community engagement & capacity building for both design driven and data driven cities. She has worked across research, academia and practice on projects in India, USA, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, South Korea and Ghana.   
 
She is the recipient of Social Start up Fellowship by School of Social Entrepreneurs India, Dalai Lama Fellow, Mentor of Change for Atal Innovation Mission and LEAD India Fellow.  
 
She loves traveling, poetry and is a flâneuse by heart. 
 

Mr. Subhash Chandra Vashishth
Director,
Svayam- Global Centre for Inclusive Environments

Subhash is an Access & Inclusion Specialist, Design Thinker, a Disability Justice Advocate and a Blogger with an interest in Inclusive Mobility, Universal Design, Accessible Transportation, Sustainability, Walkability, Livable Habitats. He serves as Director of Svayam – Global Centre for Inclusive Environments & as the Secretary General at the Permanent Secretariat of TRANSED series of Conferences. He Coordinates Triennial Svayam Accessibility Awards.

Subhash is an Expert Member for Accessibility on the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Committee on National Building Code (NBC) and has contributed substantially to the accessibility provisions incorporated in NBC 2016. He was also on the Core Committee of Ministry of Urban Development, Govt of India for ‘Harmonized Guidelines & Space Standards on Barrier free Environment for Elderly & Disabled Persons’ which stands notified under Sec. 15 of Disabilities Rules 2017 as the Guideline for designing accessible Built Environment. He is also a Member on the BIS Committee on Smart Cities (CED 59). He is a Member on the Standing Committee on Accessible Transportation and Mobility (AME50) (Formerly ABE60) of Transportation Research Board, USA.

Subhash is an Expert Member on the University Grants Commission (UGC) Committee constituted on creating ‘Guidelines on Accessibility for Students with Disabilities in Universities/Colleges.’

He conducts Architectural Audits for Accessibility & has conducted numerous workshops & trainings on Disability Law, Sensitization on disability equality, accessibility & Universal Design, inclusive services, inclusive cities etc. for policy makers, disability activists, lawyers, non-profits, design professionals, civil engineers, architects, educationists, service providers in education, transportation, hospitality, aviation, rehabilitation, etc.

Mr. Ravi Verma
Head-Strategic Affairs & Policy,
AVAADA Group

Mr. Ravi Kant Verma graduate in Electrical Engineering and holder of Post Graduate Diploma in International Business Operations has rich and diverse experience of over 24 years in Corporate Affairs, Strategy Policy Advocacy and Business Development in diverse sectors including Power, Renewables, Thermal Power Plants, Large Scale Integrated Steel Plants, Textile, Energy and Natural Resources Industry such as coal, iron ore, bauxite, etc.  
 
Mr. Verma has worked with industry leaders like JSW Group, ADANI Group and Welspun Group.  He is a permanent representative in various policy forums and industry associations such as Invest India, TERI, CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and USISPF etc.  
 
Presently, He is Head-Strategic Affairs & Policy of Avaada Group and Director – Fermi Solarfarms Pvt Ltd. for development of 80 MW solar power plant in Maharashtra. He is also a member Board of many other group companies involved in development of Mega Solar Power Projects of capacity more than 1500 MW in India. 
 
 

Dr. Kalpana Viswanath
CEO,
Safetipin

Kalpana Viswanath is the co-founder and CEO of Safetipin, a technology platform for women's safety and mobility in cities. Safetipin works with city governments to make urban spaces safer and more inclusive. She has worked as a technical consultant with the UN for building safer cities around the world. She is a member of the Advisory Group on Gender Issues, UN Habitat, Board member, International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) Canada, Board Member of SLOCAT, Chairperson of Jagori and member of the Delhi Government Women’s Safety Committee. She has published widely and has co-edited a book on Building Gender Inclusive Cities. She writes a weekly column for Hindustan Times.

Mr. Divyang Waghela
Head – Tata Water Mission (TWM),
Tata Trusts

Divyang Waghela

Mr. Divyang Waghela joined the Tata Trusts in 2009 and currently working as Head – Tata Water Mission (TWM) – a WASH initiative of the Trusts. The TWM aims to provide safe drinking water & improved sanitation services to underserved communities through technological advancement and enhanced service delivery mechanism through sustainable approaches.  

After working on Project Financing & Contract Management with multi-lateral agency, Mr. Waghela made a transition to the non-profit sector in 2004 and initiated implementation of community-based decentralized WASH projects. He also served as an Executive Director of a non-profit organisation working in climate adaption issues relating to coastal salinity issues in Gujarat. Currently, he is on board of various non-profit organizations including newly formed company Toilet Board Coalition – India.

Mr. Waghela’s key interest areas are water security, climate change and institutional building through innovative technology-based sustainable models.

Mr. Martin Wright
Chair,
Positive News

Martin is a highly experienced speaker, writer and adviser on sustainability and positive futures. Formerly Director of Forum for the Future (India) and Editor in Chief of Green Futures (now The Futures Centre), he now works independently with a wide range of companies and organisations, including The Guardian, Ashden Awards, Ethical Corporation and We Mean Business.

He is Chair of Positive News, the new media initiative dedicated to uncovering and reporting on progress and possibility, rather than doom and gloom.

He has spoken at and chaired events for The Guardian, the UK Government, the UN, the RSA and others in London, New York, Mumbai, Beijing and Beirut, and serves as MC at the annual World Sustainable Development Summit (Delhi) and the Responsible Business Summit (London). His TED talk on ‘The New Environmentalism’ topped the bill at TEDx in London (2014).

Organisations he has worked with at senior management or board level include WWF, Unilever, Sainsbury’s, BT, Marks & Spencer and Brunswick, among others.

Awards include Science and Environment Journalist of the Year, and the Global Green Future Leadership Award.

Martin is expert at communicating sustainability crisply, clearly and with a complete lack of bullshit, and at bringing complex issues down to earth. He enjoys helping others acquire and apply these skills.

Dr. Henning Wuester
Director,
Initiative for Climate Action Transparency

Dr. Henning Wuester is the Director of the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT). Dr. Wuester has a rich and longstanding experience in climate change and sustainable development.

Prior to joining ICAT, he worked in the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) overseeing the Agency’s work on knowledge, policy, and finance. Previously, Dr. Wuester served the Green Climate Fund (GCF) as Senior Manager at the Interim Secretariat.

He also worked in several positions within the United Nations system, as Special Adviser to the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and at the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in several roles in the secretariat of the Convention on Transboundary Air Pollution.  
Dr. Wuester holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Munich, where he started his career as assistant professor. 

Mr. Jitendra Yadav
Founder & CEO,
Aikya Organics

Jitendra Yaday is the Founder of an eco-inclusive start-up enterprise Aikya Organics, Kanpur, India. Aikya Organics promotes an alternative eco-inclusive agro value chain. Activities range from training women farmers in low-cost input and natural farming techniques, to installing seed and tool banks and solar-powered processing and packaging facilities,  By shortening the value chain Aikya Organics increases the affordability and availability of organic produce. Produce is sold through B2B and B2C channels, with an own-branded organic store in Lucknow. 

Mr. Yuki Yoshida
Second Secretary (Environment),
Embassy of Japan in India

 Mr. Yuki Yoshida is Second Secretary, environmental Attaché from Embassy of Japan, New Delhi. He is responsible for conducting various surveys and analyses of environmental issues such as air pollution, water pollution, solid waste management and climate change in India including spreading network of Japan in the environmental field. 
 
Earlier he has worked in disaster waste management and administration of organization field. He has been working with Ministry of Environment, Government of Japan for past 13 years.