Executive Council -
INDIA
Wheels Global Foundation’s Executive Council members are global alumni leaders who have achieved commendable professional success in their careers and have a deep passion for impact and believe in WGF’s mission and vision.
The EC members bring extensive thought-leadership in all domains of WHEELS priorities, extensive network, fresh ideas, and impact passion. Their leadership gives WGF huge confidence in achieving WHEELS’ mission of ‘Impacting 20% of Rurban India by 2030’.
The Executive Council for India, consists of 6 board members, 4 chapter members – From East, West, North, South – and 5 council members, one for each program domain of WGF.
While the India board will be focusing on the legal and statutory requirements, EC members will be prioritizing on:
* Regional Outreach Events to Engage (& inspire & recruit) alumni & other experts
* Nurture Strategic Funding / Resource partnerships (CSR, Public Institutions)
* Deployed initiatives oversight
Ashank Desai
Ashank is the Founder and Former Chairman of Mastek Ltd. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. He is the Founder Member of National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), Past Chairman and now Member of “Chairmen’s Council” & invited on Executive Council. Ashank has been felicitated by the Prime Minster Shri Narendra Modi for his contribution to NASSCOM & IT Industry for the last 25 years.
Ashank also is the founder and former chairman of Mastek and winner of
Pradip Nadkarni
Pradip is the Secretary on the WGF India board and takes care of all the legal statutory requirements.
Indrajit Chatterjee
Indrajit has over 45 years of experience in strategy planning, manufacturing management, engineering projects, and design. Proven credentials in leading business units (FMCG/multinationals) in India. Indrajit Chatterjee is a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT, Kharagpur (Batch of 1970). He has done many executive management programs which include a course on IoT from Massachusetts Institute of Technology- Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA, on Manufacturing from University of Warwick, UK, and many others from IIMs. A visionary all through, he got personally inspired by Late Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and started giving back to the country.
He spends his time focussing on education and rural development areas. He has conceived an intelligent village concept. Indrajit is the Director in the WGF Board, India and looks after Energy initiatives.
Yogesh Andlay
Yogesh Andlay is a founding team member of several leading well-known companies in the IT, consultancy, and education fields. He is the Co-founder of Nucleus Software, Grows Talent Co Ltd., and School of Inspired Leadership. Yogesh, the alumnus of the IITD 1979 batch, was President of the IIT Delhi Alumni Association during the year 2006-07. He has also been an active participant in PanIIT Alumni activities. Yogesh serves on the board of SOIL – School of Inspired Leadership (www.soilindia.net).
SOIL has been recognized as a pioneer in leadership education and has won laurels for its unique approach to leadership development. It is founded on five pillars of mindfulness, ethics, compassion, diversity, and sustainability. Yogesh has been an advisor to the Millennium Alliance program of FICCI. Millennium Alliance is a fund set up jointly by USAID, DST, DFID (UKAID), and several other organizations. In the last five years, Millennium Alliance has supported more than 120 social sector innovations impacting about 10 million people. These have been selected from amongst about 5,000 applicants who applied for this catalytic funding. These enterprises have been in the field of education, healthcare, agriculture, energy, water, sanitation, etc. In addition, he served as a Co-Chair of the Startup Committee of FICCI and a member of the Science and Technology Board of FICCI. He is a sought-after mentor by the entrepreneurs incubated at FICCI-supported incubators and accelerators. Yogesh is an active participant in Mission Samriddhi. Mission Samriddhi is a Social Development and Acceleration project in India. Yogesh is a member of the Executive Council of Mission Samriddhi. Yogesh serves on the board of WHEELS Global Foundation. He is a member of the team working on the Pilot Project for Integrated Water Management based on Scientific Data and Evidence for Himachal Pradesh. Yogesh is a certified Executive Coach. Yogesh is the Director in the WGF Board, India and looks after Water initiatives.
Digvijay Choudhari
Digvijay graduated in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay, India, and then completed his M.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, USA. Later, he worked with Cadence Design Systems, a leading EDA company, in Austin and Bay Area. Deeply inspired by the humanitarian work of Sri Sri Ravishankar he moved from Silicon Valley to the global headquarters of the Art of Living Foundation in Bengaluru, India.
He has been a full-time volunteer with the Foundation for the last 16 years driving large projects including infrastructure and development. As the Chief Administrator of the Foundation’s Headquarters in Bengaluru, he set up and streamlined the operations of the 350-acre campus by creating simple, adaptable, and scalable systems suitable to a volunteer-driven non-profit organization. Next, he established and scaled Sri Sumeru Realty Private Limited as a professionally managed quasi-social enterprise in the area of Real Estate & Construction delivering projects totaling a 20 lac sqft area worth more than USD 60M, with an industry-leading profit margin. Currently, he is focused on building Sobus Insight Forum as a global platform that catalyzes sustainable, scalable social impact via a holistic ecosystem for social startups to establish and grow. Digvijay is the President of the WGF board, India.
Gauri Kumar
Gauri Kumar is a Chairperson of WHEELS Water Council, Retd. member of the 1979 batch of Indian Administrative Services (IAS), former Secretary to Govt of India & Former Chairperson, Public Sector Enterprises Board, Govt. of India. In the course of her distinguished career, she served as Secretary to Government of India, in the Union Ministry of Labour & Employment, the Cabinet Secretariat and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (Border Management). She served as Member/Chairperson of the Public Enterprises Selection Board, post her retirement. She has served in various capacities in the Union Ministries of Mines, Environment and Forests, Finance and Textiles. While serving with the Government of Gujarat, Mrs. Kumar has held the positions of Principal Secretary, Urban Development; Principal Secretary, Industries & Mines; Industries Commissioner and Secretary, Education Department. The Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2009 was held under her stewardship.
Gauri Kumar holds a Master’s in Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She was awarded the Littauer Fellowship by Harvard University, for her commitment to excellence, academic achievement, and public service. She is also the recipient of seven gold medals by Lucknow University, for exceptional academic distinction during her Master’s study in Mathematics. She is currently an Independent Director on the Boards of several distinguished companies and has been appointed by the Chief Vigilance Commissioner to serve as an Independent External Monitor for two organizations. She is the Founder Trustee of VayahVikas, an organization for the elderly, based in Bengaluru.
She is a Member of the Board of Governors of Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration, Ahmedabad.She is the Delhi Public School (DPS) Society nominee on the Management Committees of several DPS schools in Gujarat and UP. She is a Special Invitee to the Management Committee of the Bangalore Chamber of Industry & Commerce (BCIC). She chairs the Water Council constituted by the WHEELS Global Foundation (a pan IIT philanthropic arm). A Pilot Project for Integrated Water Management, based on Scientific Data and Evidence-based Decision Support System, has been launched in Himachal Pradesh. It aspires to create a model of collaborative governance for holistic rural resurgence.
She is the Founder of an Edu tech startup which has launched an integrated Learning Platform for the education eco-system, encompassing teachers, students, parents, and schools. It’s positioned as a medium for making quality education accessible at scale. She has contributed a chapter on ‘Industry and Labour’ in the recently published book ‘Accelerating India: 7 Years of Modi Government’, edited by Shri K J Alphons, Member of Parliament, and a foreword by Shri Ajit Doval, National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of India.
Sujata Roy
Sujata is the President of WHEELS Global Foundation India, the Chairperson of WHEELS Global Foundation, Eastern India, and their Executive Council member.
Sujata spent most of her career in the Corporate IT sector, working with various private and multinational organizations like DPS, Techna, PwC, and finally IBM, from which she retired as General Manager. She has always been a strong advocate of women’s empowerment, driving key initiatives within IBM and playing a leadership role in the advancement of women employees to contribute to the all-round development of the organization.
After retirement, Sujata got actively involved in various IIT Alumni activities as well as voluntary activities to give back to society. She has served the alumni community in several leadership roles including the President of the Kolkata chapter of IIT Kharagpur Alumni Association, Vice President of IIT Kharagpur Alumni Foundation India and a member of Pan IIT Alumni.
She served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the National Digital Library of India (NDLI), a flagship project of IIT Kharagpur sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India, over the last 8 years and is an Independent Director on the Board of a public limited organization.
Sujata received her M.Sc. in Physics from IIT Kharagpur, did post-graduation in Computer Science from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and CQA from Quality Management Institute, USA. She received the Distinguished Service Award (DSA) from IIT Kharagpur because of her contributions to her Alma Mater.
Ramnath S. Mani
A Serial entrepreneur and one of the pioneers in India in the field of Industrial Automation including Power Electronics, Variable Speed Drives, PLC, Distributed Controls, Scada, Information Systems, and MES, has been instrumental in introducing Automation in the industry in India since the early 1970s. Played a pioneering role in bringing to India international Automation companies like CGEE Alsthom of France, Allen Bradley of USA (now Rockwell Automation), Stromberg of Finland (now part of ABB), Exide Electronics of USA, and Control Techniques Emerson Industrial Automation of UK and USA., Inductive Automation of USA … Having a deep domain knowledge on the application of Automation in the manufacturing sector like Paper, Steel, Cement, Sugar, Textiles, Rubber & Plastics, Automobile, Material Handling, etc, Has considerable experience in implementing the transition of Industrial Automation from Analog to Digital Technology.
Experience in the IT industry for a couple of years has extended my knowledge from Manufacturing to Business Enterprise and use of Cloud, Mobility, Analytics, and Social platforms leading to a comprehensive integration of “Shop Floor to Top Floor”. Now involved with the next revolution in the Manufacturing Industry with the Digitization of Plant Floor operation, integrating the Operations Technology (OT) to Information Technology (IT) in Manufacturing and implementing Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) and Industry 4.0 Technologies.
Engaged passionately with a Portal on Industrial Automation which brings all the stakeholders of automation including the end-user industry to a common platform.
Ramnath received his B.Tech. in Electronics & Electrical Communication at IIT-Kharagpur in 1969. Ramnath looks after the Southern Chapter of WGF India and Education initiatives.
Girish Kulkarni
Girish, an alumnus of IIT Bombay and IIM Ahmedabad, has a distinguished professional trajectory, marked by significant roles in various corporates. Prior to establishing his own investment management venture, he garnered extensive expertise in investing and collaborating with entrepreneurs. Beyond his prowess in the public stock markets and real estate, Girish is a staunch advocate of outcome-focused impact funding. As the driving force behind Suyash Advisors, his company is a prominent supporter of Raah Foundation.
In his capacity as co-founder and strategic advisor, Girish plays a pivotal role in steering Raah Foundation towards unprecedented growth and scale. Girish looks after the Western Chapter of WGF India and Energy initiatives.
Kishan Goenka
Kishan has held executive leadership roles in corporations across three continents over nearly four decades of illustrious career – from vice-president at Hindustan Gas & Industries to running Birla International’s Europe operations, and then country head for PT. Akraya and Mediterranean Fertilizers Company. He has also held board roles at several corporations including Clean Energy India AG, Vasundhara Bio Sciences Pvt Ltd, and Akraya Energy International Pvt. Ltd. All along, Kishan has been a passionate Rotarian with nearly 40-years of service. Additionally, he has supported several other impact organizations including PHS, ESRAG, and ISKCON.
- Kishan has a B.Tech (Hons) in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT- Kharagpur) and an MBA in BITS Pilani, India. Kishan looks after the Northern Chapter of WGF India.
Dr. Rahul Walwalkar
Dr. Rahul Walawalkar is the President & MD of Customized Energy Solutions (India) and leads Emerging Technologies domain for CES globally. CES under his leadership has emerged as a thought leader in the areas of energy storage, renewables, demand response, electric vehicles, and green hydrogen technologies.
A strong votary of accelerating scale-up of clean energy, energy storage and e-mobility, Rahul founded the India Energy Storage Alliance in 2012 and continues to serve as its President. He served as a board member for Energy Storage Association, USA during 2009-15, as the Chair for Global Energy Storage Alliance during 2018-20 and as a board member of NAATBATT since 2023. Rahul has served on many committees for shaping regulations and policies around the globe for agencies such as US DOE, Federal Electricity Regulatory Commission, European Space Agency, IRENA, World Bank, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Ministry of Power, NITI Aayog, Central Electricity Authority and Central Electricity Regulatory Commission.
Under Rahul’s leadership, Customized Energy Solutions has received numerous awards including the Brad Roberts Award for outstanding industry contribution by the Energy Storage Association (USA) in 2016, IPPAI Power Innovation Award for the creation of the India Energy Storage Alliance in 2016-17, USAID’s PACEsetter Fund Award for MICRO initiative in 2016 & 2019 and CII Innovative Energy Services Award for Tata Power Demand Response program in 2012.
Rahul holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, a Master’s degree in Energy Management from NYIT, and a B.E. from Walchand College of Engineering, India.
Sunil Khanna
Sunil Khanna is the co-founder and Director of SAI Agroforestry, India. He completed his B.Tech in Electronics Engineering from IIT (BHU) in 1976 and M.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1978. Mr. Khanna was the President and Managing Director of Vertiv India (www.vertiv.com, formerly Emerson Network Power India Ltd.) until his superannuation in 2020. Post retirement, he has been appointed as Non-Executive Chairman – Vertiv India. Sunil served as Managing Director of Emerson Process Management India Ltd. between 2006 and 2011. Sunil has worked earlier with ABB and was Vice President- Automation Solutions before moving to Emerson in 2004.
Sunil is recognised in the industry for having made significant technological contributions to the field of Process Automation and Critical Power Solutions. Sunil is one of the founding members of Automation Industry Association (AIA) and was its President from 2008 to 2011. Sunil was also a key member of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), elected as CII National Council Member between 2008 and 2010. He was nominated Vice Chairman of the CII Maharashtra State Council in 2015, and subsequently as Chairman in 2016. Sunil served as Chairman – Skill Development for CII-Western India.
Sunil also champions rural, social and agricultural development of our country, particularly in the State of Maharashtra and Odisha. The relevance of his contribution can be measured by its immense impact made by a number of projects he has been involved in.
As CII Chairman of Maharashtra, he pursued water conservation and irrigation projects to improve water availability and storage in many drought-prone districts of Maharashtra.
Sunil is actively working in Koraput, Odisha with tribal farmers to improve their livelihood. SAI Agro is working with farmers to convert their barren/ degraded land for agricultural activities through agroforestry model.
