Jury

He was a member of Science Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister set up by different governments for over 30 years. He has been bestowed 46 honorary doctorates from Universities around the world. The President of India has honoured him with Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.

With experience in 48 countries, he previously worked at Princeton, Oxford, UNDP (New York), and WTO (Geneva). The Asia Society honoured him recently with the 2022 Asia Game Changer Award, for his and CEEW’s “incredible work, which is making a real difference for India and for the planet”.

Arunabha advises governments, industry, civil society, and international organisations around the world. He currently serves on Government of India’s G20 Finance Track Advisory Group and advises the Sherpa Track for India’s G20 Presidency in 2022-23. In 2022, the UN Secretary-General appointed him to the High-level Expert Group on the Credibility and Accountability of Net-Zero Announcements by Non-State Actors. Since 2018, on the UN Secretary-General’s nomination, Dr Ghosh has served on the UN Committee for Development Policy. Arunabha is also a member of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. In 2020, the Government of India appointed him Co-Chair of the energy, environment and climate change track for India’s Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP2020). He was also appointed the Co-Chair of the T20 Task Force on climate and energy for Indonesia’s G20 Presidency in 2022.

He is the co- author/editor of four books and dozens of research papers and reports. His 2019 TED Talk on air quality (Mission 80-80-80) has crossed 267,000 views. He is co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Clean Air. He was a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, an Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader, and a Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellow (fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network). He was previously an Oxford-Princeton Global Leadership Fellow.

Dr Ghosh led CEEW into a leading think-tank soon after its founding in August 2010. He was actively involved in conceptualising and designing the International Solar Alliance. He conceptualised and was a founder of the Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN), an industry body for hundreds of decentralised energy entrepreneurs. He serves on the Board of Directors of ClimateWorks Foundation, and is a member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group.

Dr Ghosh has advised India’s Prime Minister’s Office, several ministries, state governments and international organisations on a range of subjects. He was invited by the Government of France as a Personnalité d’Avenir to advise on the COP21 climate negotiations. He also advised on HFC negotiations under the Montreal Protocol. He served as a member of an international high-level panel of the Environment of Peace initiative. He served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Energy. He has been a member of Track II dialogues with ten countries/regions; and formulated the Maharashtra-Guangdong Partnership on Sustainability. He served on the Executive Committee of the India-U.S. PACEsetter Fund. He was a member of the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority for the National Capital Region (2018-2020). He has presented to heads of state and legislatures across the world on varied topics including global governance, international relations and human development, climate, energy, natural resources and water, trade and intellectual property, development assistance, conflict and extremism.

Widely published, he was lead author of Stockholm+50: Unlocking a Better Future (SEI-CEEW, 2022), and Jobs, Growth and Sustainability: A New Social Contract for India’s Recovery (CEEW, 2020). Arunabha’s co-authored essay “Rethink India’s energy strategy” in Nature, the world’s most cited scientific journal, was selected as one of 2015’s ten most influential essays.

He is co-author of Energizing India: Towards a Resilient and Equitable Energy System (SAGE, 2017); Human Development and Global Institutions: Evolution, impact, reform (Routledge, 2016); and Climate Change: A Risk Assessment (FCO, 2015). He is the co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy (2016). He has been a co-author of three UNDP Human Development Reports, including the pathbreaking Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty, and the global water crisis (2006).

His regular columns are widely read and have been published in the Business Standard, Financial Express, Euractiv, Forbes, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Mint, Nikkei Asian Review, The Hindu, The Times of India, among other platforms. He has hosted a documentary on water in Africa, featured in National Geographic and Discovery Channel documentaries on energy and climate change, and delivered a TED Talk on air quality. He has been regularly interviewed on Al Jazeera, BBC, CGTN, CNBC, CNN News 18, Gulf News, India Today TV, NDTV, Voice of America, etc.

He holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford (Clarendon Scholar; Marvin Bower Scholar), an M.A. (First Class) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Balliol College, Oxford, Radhakrishnan Scholar), and topped Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

He has lived on three continents and served clients in 15 countries, including China, India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Rajat is passionate about Sustainability and helping companies take effective measures to remove carbon from across their businesses processes. He helped set up India’s National Solar Mission, often considered to be one of the country’s biggest contributions to the decarbonisation movement.

Rajat has worked with leading companies in the metals, chemical, infrastructure, mining, power,
oil, and telecommunications sectors. He brings expertise in operational transformations and
change programs with a special focus on digital enablement. Recently, he led the build-out of
McKinsey Digital globally, for our Energy and Materials sector, and in the process, directly helped three of them become World Economic Forum digital industry 4.0 lighthouses.

Rajat has also served clients on business building (including digital businesses), marketing, organisation, and strategy. He leads McKinsey’s relationships with three of India’s top five conglomerates, serving them across the globe. He has led several projects with the Indian government, working across multiple ministries such as those for aviation, railways, roads, shipping and has also worked with NITI Aayog.

Rajat is committed to building long-term relationships with Indian companies based in emerging markets and helping them transform into global leaders. For example, his involvement with a leading Indian metal company spans 25 years of building better operations, creating a stronger
performance culture, and driving marketing excellence across Asia, Europe, and India. Today, the company is a global leader in its industry.

He has also published work on poverty, carbon abatement, and water in India; been on the jury for several awards; and served on 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 as the chair of the board of 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 engineering and MBA degrees at two of India’s top schools (BITS Pilani; IIM, Calcutta).

Shloka is Vice President of the Bombay Natural History Society, one of the largest non-governmental organizations in India engaged in conservation and biodiversity research, she is a Trustee of CSMVS, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum of India, one of the country’s leading art and history museums and is a member of the Advisory Board to IUCN’s Nature-based Recovery initiative, a board member of IIT Madras’ Energy Consortium, a member of the Advisory Council of Earth HQ, the media arm and strategic communications platform of the Global Commons Alliance, as well as of Planet India, the World Economic Forum’s Trillion Trees India Council, Alliance magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board, and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)Task Force on ESG.

Shloka also co-founded and was the Managing Partner of Sankhya Women Impact Funds, a gender lens fund with a focus on sustainability. Shloka is also an active angel investor in social enterprises and has mentored organizations across sectors. She has spent over a decade in journalism with the BBC in London, as a news anchor with New Delhi Television (NDTV) and Principal Correspondent with Forbes in Mumbai, with a special emphasis on financial inclusion, sustainability and public policy. In 2010, Shloka was nominated for India’s highest awards in journalism for her reportage on microfinance in India.

Shloka has a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a BSc in Government from The London School of Economics and Political Science. She is also the author of the book, “Hidden India: Journey to Where the Wild Things Are” (April 2018), a compendium of photographs and writing about Indian wildlife and landscapes.

She is actively involved as a mentor, advisor, and thought leader with several think tanks, university labs, accelerator programs, and foundations on climate tech innovation, a Board Member on the University of Cambridge’s Alumni Advisory Council, and an advisor to Brown University’s Young India Leadership Council and Women’s Launchpad program.

Before Theia Ventures, she built the Indian Fund arm of Yunus Social Business (YSB), a global impact venture debt fund founded by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, where she led investments into companies such as S4S Technologies (Earthshot Prize Winner 2023), Rangsutra, Virohan, SMV Green, Just Organik and Hasiru Dala. Prior to YSB, Priya spearheaded strategy, capital raising, and special projects at a clean-tech, venture-backed, growth-stage company, Simpa Networks.  She began her career at Bloomberg LP in New York and later at Asia House in London. She has led independent consulting projects at impact start-ups and investment firms, such as Acumen and British International Investment. 

She holds an MBA from Cambridge Judge Business School and a BA in History from Brown University, where she is closely affiliated with alumni initiatives on gender diversity, international scholarships, and climate-focused entrepreneurship.