Senior Sustainability Strategist

Background

I am a passionate sustainability professional with a goal to bring about positive social action in our communities. I have an experience of nearly a decade in the environment sustainability domain, and I have worked on several themes including, just energy transition, development of green skill, plastic waste management, forest management, tribal forest rights, rural livelihood, NTFP and rural entrepreneurship, and environmental compliance. But, it was my early learning years that laid the foundation for my career trajectory. I developed keen interest in people centric sustainability approaches during my first research project on assessment of Indian water policy in urban and peri urban areas, which highlighted the severe impacts of climate change and water scarcity on vulnerable groups even in the most developed cities. The importance of people centric research design was reinforced during my doctoral research where I studied forest policy governance and implementation in an Indian State. I closely worked with forest dependent tribals (indigenous) communities, and got to experience firsthand, the ill effects of decades of socio-economic exclusion and challenges that entail in bringing them back to mainstream for livelihood and food security whilst sustainably managing the forest resources. 

Post my doctorate, I continued working in the development sector in various multidimensional roles, where I was involved in research and analytical writings; designing socially relevant and environmentally sound project designs; undertaking green skill development trainings; developing cross domain, comprehensive and inclusive research methodologies. And the most enjoyable part of all was working in field areas with people, tribals and rural communities in Indian states, including states of Tripura, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The organisations that I had a chance to work with include Reliance Foundations, Adani foundation, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Government of India, WWF-India, an innovation and design consultancy and Delhi based NGOs.

The understanding that I gained working on such varied themes with such different organisations made me realise the importance of each; and also, how important it is to bring all these themes and organisations together to see positive change. And at Forum, India my aim is to work on and learn more about the systems approaches that enables sustainable positive action for the society, considering all the stakeholders and bringing them together for collaborative action towards the common goal of environmentally responsible and socially just, sustainable transitions. 

My dream project

My dream project is to establish and run an organisation of my own that considers the systems approach and works with communities and people for enhancing climate resilience and providing livelihood security.

What floats my boat outside work?

Outside of work, I enjoy going for nature walks, swimming in the open sea, trying new recipes for my family, playing with Pablo (my two-year-old husky) and teaching him new tricks, taking unplanned adventure road-trips with my partner, and learning new skills. Recently, I have taken up skiing as a serious hobby, and have reached an amateurish kind of level in three years and plan to take it up a notch next year during ski season. 

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