Education

BE (Mechanical) and post Graduate Diploma in Management from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Experience

Over 40 years of experience in petrochemical industry covering business, strategic planning, long-term perspective planning, market research, business developments, corporate affairs, branding and communication predominantly for polymers. Steered perspective plans of Government of India for Petrochemical Industry. Business and market development responsibilities initially at Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited and subsequently at Reliance Industries Limited. Also handled industry and corporate affairs at RIL.

Others

Visiting faculty for M.Sc. Polymer Science Students at KJ Somaiya College of Science & Commerce Past Chairman of Indian Institute of Packaging, an autonomous institute under Ministry of Textile and Commerce, Government of India for 2 years. Hon. Secretary of Indian Center for Plastics in the Environment (ICPE), a non-profit organization established by industry on the recommendation of the task force set-up by Ministry of Environment & Forest in 1999.

Current Responsibility

Assist creation and mentoring of the new group on sustainability at RIL.

Dr. Ashok Menon leads the Global efforts for Life Cycle Assessment, Sustainability Analytics and Reporting for SABIC. His responsibilities include establishing and leading global teams on COE of Life Cycle Assessments for assessing and minimizing the environmental impact of SABIC's products, processes, and services across the value chain of the organization. His team helps enable SABIC's carbon price strategy, energy efficiency programs, develop marketing claims, build sustainable technology pipeline and the supply chain initiatives, by instilling life cycle thinking and related assessment methodology. He is also responsible for coordinating the Sustainability Report for entire SABIC.

Dr. Ashok Menon has 18+ years of experience in the chemical industry providing technical expertise and conducting global research & technology teams. He has held various positions in General Electric Co. and SABIC and helped develop technologies in the area of catalysis, polymer processing, and material characterization.

Vandana Hari is the Founder & CEO of Vanda Insights, a Singapore-based oil and gas markets analysis and research company. She has over two decades of experience providing intelligence on the global energy markets to stakeholders in the industry, related sectors, policy-makers, and wealth managers. Prior to launching Vanda Insights in September 2016, Vandana served in various leadership positions at S&P Global Platts, a leading information provider on the global energy, petrochemicals, metals and agricultural markets. During her tenure at Platts, she variously managed news reporting and price assessment operations, research and analysis, business strategy and execution, and stakeholder engagement. Vandana has a bachelor’s degree in science from India’s MD University and post-graduate diplomas in communication and social journalism. She is extensively quoted in the business press around the world and is a columnist for the Nikkei Asian Review. Vandana is a regular commentator on international radio and TV networks including Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC, and Singapore's Channel News Asia.

Chandramohan is part of the Coca-Cola India management team having started in Coca-Cola system in early 2001 as a Franchise Manager based in Bareilly. Over the years he has held roles of increasing responsibility in Franchise Operations, Region Marketing, Supply Chain and Corporate Affairs. Prior to Coca-Cola he has worked for Wipro Infotech, Marico, Perfetti-Van Melle and ICICI Bank.

Currently as the Director of Corporate Affairs in Coca-Cola, he supports business operation in 6 countries of South West Asia on matters of public policy, consumer affairs and strategic security. In the recent past he has been instrumental in improving ring fencing for Coca-Cola system to protect business core on issues like Taxation, Environment, Licensing, Manufacturing Regulatory challenges, HFSS debate and Advertising watershed at Centre and State levels. Some of the notable achievements in his current role have been – Creation of a new beverage platform with unique HS code/regulatory treatment, Tax increase avoidance in India and Nepal, creation of PET Packaging Association for Clean Environment (PACE) and establishing of “India Pledge” by Food & Beverage Association of India (FBAI).

Chandramohan completed his Masters in Marketing from SP Jain Institute of Management Studies in 1995 and also holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from NIT Allahabad (1991 batch). Later he completed a diploma program (2012) in Supply Chain Management from the Georgia Tech University in Atlanta.

Vijay Habbu is a gold-medallist BScTech and MScTech from ICT (erstwhile UDCT, Mumbai), PhD (Univ. of Leeds, UK), and a Post-doctoral Fellow (Univ. of Illinois, USA), CCol, FSDC, Silver medallist of the SDC (UK).

During his affiliations with NCL (Pune) and in the Industry, Dr. Habbu has held senior positions in the QA/QC, Technical, R&D functions. He has been with Reliance since 1994 and presently is heading the Sustainability Assurance initiatives in the Petchem Sector.

He as an advisor to several Plastics Associations and is on the forefront of formulating the Judicial, Regulatory and Governmental outlook on Sustainability of packaging materials in general and Plastics Waste management in particular.

Mihir Parekh is the 4th generation of Nilkamal Limited’s leadership. He has founded and heads the company’s foray into extrusion and packaging with its BubbleGUARD division that focuses on reusability and sustainability.

Mihir is a Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineer from the university of Warwick and holds a Master’s from London Business School.

Deepali Kelekar is currently heading the Application Development and technical service and marketing department of LyondellBasell Industries for Africa, Middle East, Turkey and India subcontinent region. The responsibility involves managing the regional team for technical support, application / market development activities for Polypropylene and Polyethylene. Current job also entails interfacing between customer and middle east joint ventures for requirement of new product development activities.

She joined Basell Polyolefins in 2002 in technical support. From 2006-2009 she was technical manager for India subcontinent and innovation manager for AfMEI region.

From 1992-2002 she was working at NOCIL. Her initial assignment at NOCIL involved product development and technical support to PVC and thermoplastic rubber compounds. Subsequently she has gained the technical and market development experience in Montell/Basell Polypropylene.

She has over 25 years of experience in Plastics Industry mainly in Polyolefins. Her educational background is Bachelor of Engineering in Polymers from University of Pune.

Milind S Chavan Leads Sustainability for Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics. He holds Masters in Electronics Engineering and MBA from IIMK (Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode).

He has more than 25 years of experience in the various fields ranging from Telecom, Power, metals & mining. He is currently heads strategic role for the value chain engagement for the innovation in flexible plastic packaging and sustainability. He closely interacts with brand owners/ FMCG co. and also with select customers to create the value for all partners in our collaboration program. He also drives PacXpert technology licensing and commercialization. The key focus is on driving the sustainable solutions from Dow to improve the recycling and creating circular economy. He is exploring options in Mechanical & Chemical recycling. He was instrumental in building asphalt road with the use of post-consumer plastics waste in Pune & Bengaluru. He has globally published several papers and presented at various conferences.

Pratibha Sharma has over 8 years of professional experience, with 6 years of experience in Solid Waste Management sector, working with International Zero Waste Network and Wastepickers’ Organizations in India. She is currently working as a Project Officer for Plastic Waste Recycling Partnership Programme at United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Mumbai.

Previously she has worked with Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), an international network of more than 800 organizations working towards environmental protection, sustainable development, and human rights. As a Regional Coordinator, Pratibha supported the national zero waste movement in India through research and advocacy, knowledge sharing, and member connect. She specializes in designing, implementation and advocacy of decentralized zero waste systems with focus on recycling, informal sector inclusion, organics waste management and e-waste.

Pratibha is passionate about building multi-stakeholder, people-centric governance structures for SWM policy implementation and strengthening capacity of Urban Local Bodies and Grassroots Communities. Through numerous public lectures, workshops, presentations and study tours, Pratibha has also facilitated knowledge exchange for diverse stakeholder groups like Government Officials, International Delegates, NGOs, Academicians, Citizens at various Regional and International platforms, including COP 21 in Paris.

She also co-authored a paper “Making Waste Matter: Reimagining Urban Renewal and Advocating for Waste-pickers' Right to a Dignified Livelihood” for the book “Land, Labour and Livelihoods: Indian Women's Perspectives” for Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan publication.

An engineer turned development professional, Pratibha holds a B. Tech Degree from National Institute of Technology, Surat and a Master's degree in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her interest areas include decentralized waste management, circular economy, green livelihoods and a range of issues at the intersection of gender equality, women’s rights and climate justice.

Santhosh is recognized as a thought leader in the South-Asian region in the areas of sustainability and climate change. He has over 19 years of experience and is a regular speaker on important platforms on Sustainability in the country, an occasional writer on the subject, with published articles and interviews in mainstream media in India. In 2012 Santhosh joined KPMG as a Technical Director for the Climate Change and Sustainability Services department and now heads the practice.

In 2002, Santhosh joined DNV as an environmental management system auditor. From 2003, he started the climate change team in DNV, India, and validated Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Projects in various countries for registration with UNFCC. Santhosh has managed the team that were responsible for the SA 8000 global accreditation for DNV. Between 2005 and 2007, Santhosh operated as the Country Head of Sri Lankan operations of DNV.

Santhosh is responsible for launching the AA1000 series standards in India and first assessments against ISO 26000 conducted in India and Sri Lanka. He has developed and established a strong clientele in the sustainability space which includes leaders such as Infosys, Wipro, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Larsen & Toubro, Maruti Suzuki, ONGC, Ambuja Cement, ABB, Uninor, HCL and Akzo Nobel.

He has established a network of collaboration and business relations with various agencies in the region like Accountability of the UK, ACCA in Sri Lanka, South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA), TERI-BCSD the regional network of WBCSD in India, Sustainability of the UK, Swedish Trade Council in India, GRI etc.

Dr Shalini Sharma is the Founding Director of the ‘Global Institute for Circular Economy & Sustainable Development Goals’ that operates from Hyderabad, India. She is also leading an award winning start-up Sanshodhan: An E-Waste Exchange that aims at ‘Digitization For Transformation of the waste management sector’.

Dr Sharma has co-founded an international organization ‘Circular World’ along with partners from Portugal and the UK. She is responsible for the strategic development of these organisations.

During her 12 years of post-Ph.D. experience, she worked on - Environmental Impact Assessment and Management plans, Capacity building for industry/Government/ institutes; resource efficiency and cleaner production, Climate change, Low carbon pathways/ GHG Accounting for State Governments and Corporate, design and development of 'e-waste policy’ and 'Industry & Investment policy' for various State Governments. As a Consultant to State Governments she served for industry policy reforms.

She completed various national and international projects, supported by international funding agencies including UNIDO, World Bank, Shakthi foundation, BMBF, IDA, The Netherlands Embassy, German Embassy, Australian Embassy and more.

She lead as Head, Centre for Climate Change, ESCI at Hyderabad to become Observer organization with UNFCCC. Thereon, she served as RINGO Foal Point, attended COP 17, COP18 UNFCCC meetings & provided inputs for Article-6, SBSTA38/SB38, UNFCCC.

She is awarded with international fellowships : DAAD ; Fulbright-Nehru Environment Leadership programme and Chevening Rolls-Royce Science, Innovation, Policy & Leadership fellowship, thus she is Humboldt , Columbia University and Oxford University alumna.

In Nov 2018, She The people TV, Bombay Stock Exchange, Business Standard, Facebook , Axis Bank, and Lufthansa jointly recognised her with ‘Digital Women Award’. The event was featured in CNBC TV 18, Young Turk TV series, aired in Dec 2018.

Her startup E-WasteExchange.com for innovation on ‘circular economy for e-waste management sector’ and ‘online disposal of e-waste- Citizens Model’ won first prize in - Swacch Bharat Grand Challenge, organiseds by DIPP, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. She received award from Mr Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, DIPP, GoI, in Dec 2018 at MoI&C, GoI, Delhi.

She initiated her career as a researcher at National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), CSIR, Lucknow. She wore various hats — as team leader, head of centre for climate change, environment management consultant, network & coalition builder, lecturer and researcher and now she is entrepreneur and mentor for startups.

Dr. Shilpi Kapur is a trained economist and has over 10 years of research experience in the field of environment and natural resource management. Currently she is a Fellow in The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Before joining TERI, she completed her PhD Economics from Washington University in St Louis, USA in 2008, where she was also the recipient of Graduate Fellowship, Graduate Student Tuition Scholarship, Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship and Bradley Fellowship.

Shilpi has worked on multiple projects and research assignments for different Ministries and States in the Government of India, bilateral and multilateral organizations, and industry. Some of her recent key projects have focussed on issues of Resource Efficiency and Circular Economy, Natural Resource Revenue Management, Environmental Fiscal Reforms and Strategies and Instruments for promoting Sustainable Consumption and Lifestyles. She is currently also coordinating TERI’s collaboration with Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Norway through the Framework Agreement focussing on three thematic areas- Low carbon resource efficient growth, Clean Energy and Sustainability, and Climate Change.

Apart from this, Shilpi has led many capacity building activities for corporates, academia and civil society organizations. This includes giving lectures on topics related to natural resource security, sustainable consumption and resource efficiency at the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme of the Government of India, designed for 161 partner countries in Asia, Africa, East Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean as well as Pacific and Small Island countries. She was also selected coordinating author by UNEP for its flagship report on Global Environment Outlook (GEO).

Mr. Manohar Kumar is the Chief Technical Officer and a part of the Business Strategy Group at Max Speciality Films Limited. In this role, he is responsible for developing, identifying and commercializing new opportunities in the field of Packaging.

A technocrat by qualification and a strategist by choice, Manohar wears several hats at one of India’s oldest and best known packaging, labelling and lamination film producers at the Chandigarh based Max Speciality Films Ltd (MSFL).

Manohar is a Graduate (B.E.) in Chemical Engineering from Mangalore University. Manohar has been in the complex field of yarns and films for 28 years. In that time, he has witnessed the birth of new film technologies and global trends and has led several key exercises in film innovation. A business strategist with a vision to innovate specialty polymer films.

Sandeep Patel is an entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of NEPRA. NEPRA operates in waste management & recycling, bringing in compliance for its partners for Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 and lately, plays a big role in executing Extended Producer Responsibility; EPR Projects. NEPRA aims to bring in transparency and scalability in a highly unorganized Indian waste management sector, indirectly benefiting bottom of pyramid and promoting Circular Economy.

He has spent over 10 years and has built a suitable model in waste management for Indian context. He has been a speaker at IIMs and International Policy Forum – Eco Innovation systems at Berlin, Germany, and many other such forums. Sandeep also represents NEPRA in various committees that includes CII Environment committee, CII National Waste to Worth, CII Working Group on Plastic Waste Management, PlastIndia National Recycling committee and Swacch Bharat Mission – Gujarat.

He was featured in the ‘Green Hero Film Festival’ organized by the U.S. Consulate General and TERI, Mumbai for revolutionizing dry waste collection and management in Ahmedabad. The company is a recognized winner of 3R Excellence Award for waste recycling in 8th Regional 3R Forum in Asia and the Pacific- Mission Zero Waste and has stood as a finalist for prestigious awards like Seed awards, CII awards, IFC-FT, Swachh-a-thon etc.

After completing his Bachelor’s In Business Administration (BBA), he did his MBA in E-Commerce Strategy and Project Management from LEEDS Beckett University, UK.

Mr Parlikar had Spearheaded Co-processing initiative in the country and established it as a business model for large scale management of wastes as resources in cement manufacturing

He has served as an Expert Member on several committees constituted by Government of India

He is experienced in Policy Advocacy; Business management; Marketing; Project Management; Process Design & Engineering; Strategic Planning; Collaborations for Technology Transfer & Technology Assimilation; Technology Development and Scale up; R&D;

He has published more than 30 papers.

Mr. Bipin Odhekar heads the Sustainability & Operations Excellence function at Marico. He has graduated in Production Engineering and Executive Management from IIM Bangalore. His industrial experience of 20 years spans over multiple areas like sustainability, operations, projects, quality and process excellence. He has developed expertise in areas of projects, quality systems and plant operations. He implemented various projects in improving process efficiencies and cost reduction in edible oil refining.

During Marico’s journey of Business Excellence, he trained various operations teams for effective implementation of TPM, ISO systems, Greenco, Six sigma and NABL. Along with the Operations Excellence team, Mr. Bipin played an important role in designing and institutionalization of Marico’s OE Model globally. He has also worked with RBNQA as a certified assessor.

In the recent past, Bipin was instrumental in developing sustainability function at Marico. He played a key role in creating the sustainability path for Marico which includes strategy, targets and governance mechanisms for disclosures.