Patricia Kameri-Mbote is the Director of the Law Division, of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Previously, Patricia was Founding Research Director of the International Environmental Law Research Centre (IELRC), and was the Programme Director for Africa for over 20 years.  

Patricia has in-depth knowledge and experience in environmental law acquired at local, national, regional, and international levels. She has consulted for UNEP in the review of programmes, legal instruments, and the rules of engagement of major groups. She has been engaged in the Montevideo Environmental Law Programme since 2007 and is a member of the Governing Board of the International Council on Environmental Law (ICEL).  

Patricia is a member of the Senior Counsel Bar in Kenya and has been a Professor of Law at the School of Law, University of Nairobi, where she has taught for over 30 years and served as Dean. She has also taught environmental law at Kansas University, University of Zimbabwe and Stellenbosch University.  She served as chair of the Association of Environmental Law Lecturers in African Universities, and has contributed to the development of similar initiatives for North Africa and Middle East and for judges. 

Patricia holds doctorate (1999) and Masters’ (1996) degrees in law from Stanford University and a higher doctorate from the University of Nairobi (2019). She also holds a Masters’ degree from Warwick University (1989) and was awarded an honorary degree in law by the University of Oslo (UiO) in 2017. 

View full profile of Prof. Patricia Kameri-Mbote

Gavin Bridge is Professor of Economic Geography at Durham University and a Fellow of the Durham Energy Institute. His research focuses on the spatial and temporal dynamics of extractive industries; and the production networks and supply chains associated with high and low carbon economies. His work has been funded by UKRI, NSF, National Geographic Society, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, Newton Fund and Horizon 2020 amongst others. Books include Oil (with Polity Press), the Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology and Energy and Society: A Critical Perspective. He is Principal Investigator for Fraying Ties: Networks, Territory and Transformation in the UK Oil Sector; and is leading case study research on the supply chain for critical battery materials as part of a UKERC-funded project on the Geopolitical Economy of Energy System Transformation.

Professor Damilola S. Olawuyi, SAN (QC), FCIArb, is a Professor and UNESCO Chairholder on Environmental Law and Sustainable Development at the College of Law. He is also Chancellor’s Fellow and Director of the Institute for Oil, Gas, Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development (OGEES Institute), Afe Babalola University, Nigeria. 

A prolific and highly regarded scholar, Professor Olawuyi has practiced and taught law in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. 

Professor Olawuyi has published close to 100 articles, book chapters, and books on petroleum law, energy, and international environmental law. 

Professor Olawuyi serves on the executive committees and boards of several organizations. He is Vice Chair of the International Law Association; co-chair of the Africa Interest Group of the American Society of International Law (2016-2019); and member of the Academic Advisory Group of the International Bar Association’s Section on Energy, Environment, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Law (SEERIL). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy.

Professor Olawuyi holds a doctorate (DPhil) in energy and environmental law from the University of Oxford; a master of laws (LLM) from Harvard University; and another LLM from the University of Calgary. He has been admitted as Barrister and Solicitor in Alberta, Canada; Ontario, Canada; and Nigeria.

Professor Olawuyi is a regular media commentator on all aspects of natural resources, energy and environmental law. 

Don is based in the School of Management as Professor of Sustainability & Energy Futures sponsored by EnQuest plc. 

Having graduated as a Chemical Engineer gained further qualifications in Environmental Management (MSc,  UMIST), Risk Management (PhD, Manchester) and Sustainability (MSt, Cambridge). 

Majority of career spent in the Energy sector with a focus on Risk Management and Sustainability. Currently, Chairman of LondonEnergy Ltd and an advisor at Executive Committee and Board level for a number of companies in the Energy and Utilities sectors.

Dr Cristina D’Alessandro is an executive with 20+ years academic and advisory experience in economic transformation, sustainable development, leadership, capacity building, public policies, natural resource governance, and urban governance, mainly in Africa. Offers a unique set of qualifications with expertise in the areas of digitalization and private sector development. Recognized as a brilliant academic through acceptance at prestigious institutions, such as Sciences-Po Paris (France), the University of Milan (Italy) and the University of Ottawa (Canada). Serves as an expert and advisor with various organizations and institutions, including the United Nations.

Dr. Hany Besada is Senior Research/Programme Advisor at the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC). He is also a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow with the United Nations University-Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA); Senior Fellow, Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History, University of Toronto and Research Fellow, China Institute for South-South Cooperation in Agriculture (CISSCA), China Agriculture University. Until recently, he was Research Professor, Institute of African Studies, Carleton University and Senior Fellow, Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), Columbia University. Previously, he served as Deputy Executive Director at the Diamond Development Initiative (DDI); Regional Advisor, African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC) at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA); Theme Leader: Governance of Natural Resources at the North-South Institute (NSI); Research Specialist on the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel Secretariat on the Post 2015 Development Agenda, United Nations Development Program (UNDP); Program Leader and Senior Researcher at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo, Canada; Principle Researcher: Business in Africa at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) in Johannesburg, South Africa; and Policy Advisor for the South African Ministry of Local and Provisional Government. Dr. Besada is the author of more than 80 peer-reviewed scholarly journal papers, dozens of policy papers, over 70 opinion pieces and editor/author of 15 books. He holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.  

 

Emomotimi Agama, B.Sc. (Accountancy) M.Sc. (Banking and Finance) M.Sc. (Economics), Ph.D. (Economics)Grad Cert Capital Market (GWU) MCSI, ACFE, LIFA, ACMA, CGMA ACS

|IFC-Milken Institute Fellow

Managing Director (Nigerian Capital Market Institute)

Emomotimi John Agama is a Chartered Management Accountant, Economist, Investment Analyst, A Chartered Stock Broker. He is currently Managing Director at the Nigerian Capital Market Institute (NCMI) a subsidiary of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was previously the Head Registration, Exchanges and Market Infrastructure and Innovation Department, Special Assistant to the Executive Commissioner Operations and Head, Public Offerings at the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Timi was a Secondee to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018. He is a ranking member of the Rules Committee and a member of the SEC committee on the adoption of IFRS in Nigeria and the SEC arrow head for the introduction of Derivatives trading in the Nigerian Capital Market and spearheaded the introduction of rules in Green Finance in the Nigerian Capital Market.    Prior to joining the SEC was at various time with the University of Benin and Office of the Accountant General of the Federation. Timi is a Fellow of the IFC-Milken Institute Capital Markets Program 

Timi holds the honors degree in Accountancy from the Rivers State University of Science and Technology Port-Harcourt, a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance and another Master of Science degree in Economics both from the University of Benin, Benin City Nigeria and a Ph.D. in Economics with distinction from the Nile University of Nigeria where his Ph.D. dissertation was titled Impact of Cryptocurrency Operations on Macroeconomic Variables in Nigeria. A graduate certificate in Capital Market from The George Washington University Washington DC USA, Timi is also a graduate of the International Housing Finance Program of the Wharton Business School USA, New York Institute of Finance, Core Analyst Program.  The Advanced Risk Management Certificate from the University College London and PRMIA, A graduate of Strategic Enterprise Analysis and PRINCE 2 Project Management of the SEEC, York University Toronto Canada. He is a graduate of the Duke University USA program on Fintech law and Policy.

He is an Associate Member Chartered Institute of Management Accountant UK, A Chartered Global Management Accountant, Chartered Member of LIFA USA, Member Chartered Securities and Investment Institute, London, Associate Member Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE),  He represents the Nigerian SEC as a plenary member of the Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC) of the Global Legal Entity Identifier where he also sits on the board of the global body as a Vice Chairman. He has lead various initiatives at the Nigerian SEC including serving as the Project Manager for the Nigerian Capital Market Master Plan (2015-2025), A major driver of the resuscitation of the Commodities Market. A fintech enthusiast and a global contributor to the Fintech discourse.    

Dr Agama serves as regional executive member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountant (CIMA) UK and Chairman Board of Trustees for Purity Rose Orphanage Home.

 

 

Professor Olanrewaju Adigun Fagbohun is one of the celebrated voices in the area of environmental law and advocacy for environmental preservation.  He is a native of Akesan in the Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State.  His father, HRM Oba Tajudeen Abayomi Alabi Fagbohun (Ogedengbe III) was the traditional ruler of Akesan Community.

Professor Fagbohun received his trainings at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and at the University of Lagos from where he earned his Bachelor of Laws, Master of Laws and later doctorate degree.  He began his teaching career at the Faculty of Law of the Lagos State University (LASU) in 1991. He lectured at LASU for 19 years at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels before joining the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) in 2009.

At different times, Professor Fagbohun has served as consultant and task leader for the United Nations Environmental Programme, the British Council, the European Commission, World Council on Genetics, University of Nottingham, the Harvard Medical School, the National Judicial Institute, and several State Governments among others.  He is an Assessor/External Examiner for MPhil/Ph.D programmes of a number of universities in Nigeria; the University of Forth Hare, South Africa; and the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.  He is also on the Board of the Environmental Law Research Institute.

Professor Fagbohun has also served as the Chairman, Lagos State Local Government Election Petition Tribunal; Member, Lagos State Water Regulatory Commission; Chairman, Editorial Board, Petroleum, Natural Resources and Environmental Law Journal; Editor-in-Chief, NIALS Journal of Environmental Law; Vice-Chairman, African Regional Forum of the International Bar Association; Regional Representative, Africa, Environment Health and Safety Committee of the IBA; Member, Regional Academic Network on IT Policies; Law and Policy Expert Think 20 Summit/Global Policy Dialogue Platform Conference on Sustainable Development; and Member, Expert Group for the Development of Climate Change Policy and Legislation for Nigeria.  He was one of the 19 experts globally selected in 2012 to work in the Task Force that produced the International Bar Association Publication titled Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption which was published in July, 2014. He is also a recipient of several Awards within and outside Nigeria.

As at February, 2021, Professor Fagbohun has published sixty-one (61) articles in local and international peer reviewed journals and delivered over 160 commissioned lectures in different parts of the world.  He has co-edited nine (9) books and authored two (2) books that have met with acclaim and enthusiastic praise from reviewers, namely The Law of Oil Pollution and Environmental Restoration: A Comparative Review; and his influential inaugural work, Mournful Remedies, Endless Conflicts and Inconsistencies in Nigeria’s Quest for Environmental Governance: Rethinking The Legal Possibilities for Sustainability. On a number of occasions, Professor Fagbohun has acted as Nigerian Law Expert for Law Firms in the United Kingdom and United States.  In one of the cases, the United States District Court Southern District of Florida expresslyrelied in her judgment on Professor Fagbohun’s expert opinion and further noted that “both as an academic and legal practitioner, he was thoroughly qualified”.

Professor Fagbohun served as the 8th substantive Vice-Chancellor of the Lagos State University. Throughout his 5-year tenure, the University did not have any disruption to its academic calendar(January 2016 to January 2021).  The University moved from an Institution with which many were disenchanted to a University with national and global visibility.  The University among several others became certified by the World Bank, Association of AfricanUniversities, and the National Universities Commission as an Africa Centre of Excellence for Innovative and Transformative STEM education.  The University was also ranked the second-best University in Nigeria by THE World University Ranking 2021, and in the 501 to 600 band globally.

He is a founding member of the Environmental Law Research Institute (ELRI), a nonprofit organization for applied environmental research and policy analysis.

In 2019, Professor Fagbohun was conferred with the National Productivity Order of Merit Award by the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria. 

View full profile of Prof. Olanrewaju Fagbohun, SAN

Dr Anna Zalik is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change at York University. Dr Zalik’s research examines the political economy of oil, gas and other extractive industries, with a focus on the merging of corporate security and social welfare interventions in strategic exporters, particularly Nigeria, Mexico and Canada. She has also examined the relationship between popular resistance to extraction,vrisk analysis as carried out by global financial institutions, and the spatial reorganization of energy and extractive infrastructure. From 2005-2007 she was a Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Zalik has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for research on a range of topics related to the political economy of hydrocarbons, substantive industrial transparency, and the contested regulation of extractive industries in oceans beyond national jurisdiction. She has given invited presentations at many universities internationally, among them the Peace Research Institute – Oslo, the University of Chicago Human Rights Centre, and the UNAM in Mexico City.

Dr Isaac ‘Asume’ Osuoka coordinates Social Action International, an organisation promoting resource democracy and the human rights and livelihoods of marginalised communities in West and Central Africa. He previously served as Coordinator of Oilwatch Africa, a network supporting communities impacted by the petroleum industry in the continent. His role involved building local capacity to respond to industry challenges, advocating for policy change, and working with others to highlight the link between natural resource exploitation, environmental degradation, and social inequalities. He coordinated Africa’s civil society participation in the World Bank’s Extractive Industries Review (EIR).

Osuoka has participated in several international conferences and has been a panellist at the United Nations’ Expert Group Meeting on the Use of Non-Renewable Resource Revenues for Sustainable Local Development.

Osuoka holds a doctorate in Environmental Studies and has taught at York University and Carleton University in Canada. His teaching and interdisciplinary research intersect the state, civil society and social movements, labour, environment, and climate change, focusing on Africa’s Gulf of Guinea and the Sahel region.

Joe is a Partner at Watson Farley and Williams, working in the firm’s Energy & Infrastructure group based in London. He advises lenders and sponsors on a number of project finance, acquisition finance, reserve-based lending and other structured financings and has a particularly impressive track record advising on transactions across Europe and Africa. He is recommended for his trade finance and energy expertise by leading directories Legal 500 UK and IFLR 1000.

Michael J. Watts is an Emeritus ‘Class of 1963’ Professor of Geography and Director of Development Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as the Director of the Institute of International Studies at Berkeley from 1994-2004. Watts was the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Social Science Research Council in New York (2010-2015) and was recently awarded the Berlin Prize by the American Academy in Berlin. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2003 and was awarded the Victoria Medal by the Royal Geographical Society in 2004. Watts was educated at University College London and the University of Michigan and has held visiting appointments at the Smithsonian Institution, and universities in Bergen, Bologna, and London. Professor Watts’ research has addressed a number of development issues, particularly the oil and gas industry, energy security, resource development and land reform in Africa and South Asia. He has written extensively on the oil industry, focusing on West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea. Much of his research has centered on Nigeria, which he first visited shortly after the civil war, and was attached to Ahmadu Bello University and the University of Ibadan in the 1970s.

Professor Watts has consulted for a number of development agencies, including the United Nations and the World Bank. Professor Watts has published nineteen books and over three hundred articles in leading research journal, has provided testimony to the US Congress and State Department, and provided expert testimony in a number of legal cases.

Watts is a fellow of the British Academy and also Long Term Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala.

Kathryn is the Director of ODI’s Politics and Governance programme, managing ODI’s team of political economy experts.She has been a widely acknowledged as an expert on politics, peacebuilding, business & human rights in conflict-affected settings and corporate accountability. A fluent French speaker, Kathryn has geographical expertise in West and Central Africa and over 25 years' experience of conducting and managing research and providing policy advice at a senior level in multilateral and bilateral institutions and NGOs.

As a member of ODI's Leadership Team, Kathryn currently chairs ODIs Decolonising Research and Policy Taskforce responsible for transforming the way knowledge is produced across the organisation. 

Before joining ODI, Kathryn worked for the OECD as Head of Unit and Head of the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Secretariat and co-authored their 2015 States of Fragility report. She also previously worked for the Irish Government and spent eight years as a researcher and policy advisor for Oxfam and ACORD. As a consultant, Kathryn worked with various bilateral and multilateral institutions, including DfID, Danida and AfDB. 

Kathryn has a PhD in Politics and International Relations from Nuffield College, University of Oxford and an MA in Area Studies (Africa) from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Kathryn is currently Chair of the Expert Working Group of a Commission of Inquiry into oil and gas pollution in Nigeria (the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission) and a member of the Board of Trustees of RAID (Rights and Accountability in Development).

A true nationalist and internationalist, Dr. Akpezi Ogbuigwe is a respected and high-profile expert in transformational change in higher education in Africa. She is the Founder of Anpez Centre for Environment and Development. A centre she founded in 1991 to respond to the huge environmental neglect and pollution of the Niger Delta Region. She currently serves as Adviser for the African Region, UNU Regional Centres for Expertise (RCE’s); Member of the Group of Experts, Global Universities Network for Innovation (GUNi); Board Member of the Earth Charter International; Member, Advisory Board for the Network on Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures, School of Education, university of Bristol (www.tesf.network); Associate, KIKO Educational, London (www.kikoeducational.com); Until December 2019 she served with four global experts as Juror for the UNESCO/Japan Prize for Education for Sustainable Development. She is currently engaged in consulting on educational and environmental matters, giving lectures on the environment, supporting legal education reform and promotion of research in her field.

 

Her International Career saw her in various leadership positions with the United Nations. Joining the United Nations Environment Programme in 2002 - 2014 after spending several years as a law lecturer, Dean of Law and Associate Professor in environmental law, she became Head of Environmental Education and Training in UNEP; served as UNEP’s lead focal point for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development during which  she developed, initiated and led the highly impactful network known as The Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in Africa Partnership (MESA); and Coordinator of the Ecosystem Management sub-Programme of UNEP. Between 2010 and 2012, she was appointed a guest professor at the prestigious Tongji University, Shanghai, China. In May 31, 2011, she gave a TEDXFGCU talk on Africa: An Alternate Narrative (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyLgMFMS6QI). She has served in several international scientific committees and travelled the world and throughout the African continent extensively facilitating cooperation and partnerships for sustainable development.

 

Nationally, she nurtured a young Faculty of Law as Ag. Dean for 5 years at the Rivers State University (RSU); she was appointed Reader at RSU in 1999 before she left for the UNEP in 2002. She was one of the pioneers of environmental law research and development in Nigeria having been actively involved in research on the subject since 1983. Before then, she had lectured at University of Lagos and the Nigerian Police Training College, Kaduna.

 

She is a recipient of awards and honours such as the Environmental Creation Awareness Award by the Environment Outreach Magazine (2010); The Outstanding Young Persons of Nigeria Award in recognition of contribution to Moral and Environmental Leadership by the Nigeria Junior Chamber on the occasion of their 40th Anniversary Convention (1997). Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecturer, The Centre for Environmental & Sustainability Education of Florida Gulf Coast University, USA. 2011; Plenary Keynote Speaker at the 2015 Botanical Gardens Conservation International (BGCI's 9th International Congress, St Louis, USA); Moderator, 2nd Plenary: ESD 2030 - What will it look like? At the UNESCO World Conference on ESD, November 2014, Aichi-Nagoya, Japan; “Empowerment of Women and Environmental Change”, special opening paper at the 4WEEC, July, 2007; ‘Millennium Development Goals – A voice from the South’, Lecture at United Nations, Association, International Week, Kristiansand, September 2006. And more recently, plenary keynote lecture at the 2018 Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Conference in Pittsburgh. https://youtu.be/1NU-JKLcw0w and Moderator 2nd Plenary, UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development.

 

She has contributed to knowledge in the field of environmental law, environmental education, climate change and education for sustainable development through several published articles in international journals and books such as Ogbuigwe, A (2022). The imperative for legal education responsiveness to the climate change exigency, RSU anniversary publication; Legal Issues in the Niger Delta Resource Dilemma, 2nd Edition, ACFED (2018);  Birth Pangs of Africa’s Renaissance (2007); SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals: A view from inside Africa’s Higher Education Institutions, Approaches to SDG 17 Partnerships for the SDGs (SDGs), GUNI, 28-36 (2018);  ‘Lessons from the UNEP Ogoniland Environmental Assessment for New Oil & Gas Frontiers in Africa’, Rivers State University Oil & Gas Journal, 2017; ‘Climate Change Education in Africa’, Southern African Journal of Environmental Education,2009; Empowering Students for Environmental Action: The Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in African Universities Partnership Programme, Chapter in Young people , Education, and Sustainable Development: Exploring principles, perspectives and Praxis, Netherlands, Wagenengen Academic Publishers, Ed by Corcoran and Osano; Delivering Education for Sustainable Development through the MESA Partnership, Journal for Development, July – Dec 2008, Vol 2 No. 2 PP157- 165; Ogbuigwe, A. 2007, “Learning to Shape our future”, in UN Decade of education for Sustainable Development -The Contribution from Europe, German Commission for UNESCO (DUK). Bonn, 2007, p.78; Lotz-Sisitka, H., Lupele, J. & Ogbuigwe, A. 2006. Translation processes in the design of an Education for Sustainable Development Innovations Course for universities in Africa, in the Journal of Teacher Education; "Law and Environment - The Niger Delta Legal Challenge". Port Harcourt Law Journal. Vol.1. 1999; Jickling, B.; Lotz-Sisitka, H., O’Donoghue, R. & Ogbuigwe, A. 2006. Environmental Education, Ethics and Action: A workbook to get started, Nairobi, UNEP, 2006; “The United Nations Decade of Education and Sustainable Development (2005-2014)”, Chapter in International Environmental Law-making and Diplomacy Review, University of Joensuu-UNEP Course Series 2, 2005, p.179-185; “Environment for development and the poor: role of environmental education”, Chapter in AB Temu et al (ed) “Rebuilding Africa’s Capacity for Agricultural Development, 2004, p19 – 33.

Akpezi continues to contribute internationally to the field of environmental law, environmental education and sustainability, climate change research and transformation of the teaching profession and higher education in Africa. She injects transdisciplinary and transgressive approaches in her research and training programmes.

 

 

Dr. Sameer Sharma is a scholar-administrator. He has a Master’s in 
Community Planning and a doctorate from the United States. In the Master’s 
course he has taken courses related to environmental planning in order to gain an 
understanding of the range of environmental processes that are related to how we 
live, build, and run our economy and how our activities interfere with these natural 
processes. He has combined these theoretical learnings with practice during the 
process of implementation of Sustainable Development Goals at the village level. 
He was also adjudged an outstanding graduate student. His doctoral thesis was in 
the cross-functional areas of spatial economics, public health and urban planning.
Dr. Sharma has also received a D.Litt from the Shankaracharya University, 
Kanchi, India. 

Dr. Sharma has over 38 years of experience in public and corporate
governance. This includes more than 17 years in implementing sustainable 
development in the urban sector. He has worked as the municipal commissioner of 
the cities of Vijayawada, Vishakapatnam and Hyderabad. During 1990-94, he was 
responsible for the financial turnaround of the municipal corporations of 
Vijayawada and Hyderabad, implementation of the neighbourhood committees in 
slums, using digital technology to automate issue of birth & death certificates and 
designing and construction of underground drainage systems in Vijayawada and 
Vishakapatnam. During 2010-12, in Hyderabad he introduced digital technology to 
remotely monitor the complete range of solid waste management as well 
sustainable development in the ward committees.

 
He was the Principal Secretary (Municipal Administration and Urban 
Development) of Andhra Pradesh from 2013-14. Here he started implementation of 
the RAY, the precursor to the PMAY. During 2014-17, while working as 
Additional Secretary in the Housing & Urban Affairs Ministry, New Delhi, he was 
the Missions Director of the India: Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT and the World 
Bank-supported urban capacity building programme. For a year he was the pointperson for the development of the City of Benares as well. In the AMRUT he 
designed a policy to provide taps to each household in cities with a population 
more than one lakh.

Based on his experience of leading the India: Smart City Mission, he has 
written a book entitled, “Smart Cities Unbundled”. Recently, he wrote “A 
Textbook on Urban Planning and Geography” meant primarily for teaching urban 
planning in India. 

He was the main author of the first India: Liveability Index, in which 
liveability indicators were mapped to the Sustainable Development Indicators 
(SDGs). This was later modified as the Ease of Living Index, prepared by the 
Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, New Delhi. The experience as Principal 
Secretary (IT), AP during 2009-10 as well as the through grounding in statistics 
from his doctoral programmes, enabled him to develop the index first time in India.
He was chairman of the Committee set up by the Ministry of Housing and 
Urban Affairs (HUA) to design a National Urban Policy Framework and designed
the National Policy on Value Capture Finance (VCF). He was also a case study 
writer for the Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru and wrote a 
case study on the implementation of establishment of ward committees and area 
sabhas in the Greater Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad during 2010-12.

He has practiced corporate governance and has worked as Chairman & 
Managing Director of APCO, a State Cooperative Company and Indian Tourism 
Development Corporate (ITDC), a Public Sector Unit under the Government of 
India. In the APCO, he focused on what are now labeled Environment, Social and 
Governance (ESG) framework, as well crafted and implemented a turnaround 
strategy. As a result, APCO became profitable in addition to focusing on the ESGs. 
In the ITDC, he conceptualized and designed a model for strategic planning and 
executed the Balance Scorecard System. This led to a quick changeover and the 
revenues of the hotel chain increased by around 30 percent in six months.
He has worked as the Director General and CEO of the Indian Institute of 
Corporate Affairs, a think tank under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

Here he has turned around a loss making organization in 2018 to a profit making entity by
2021. He started the Graduate Insolvency Programme (GIP) to generate 
professionals for the emerging insolvency eco-system in India as well as the portal 
for independent directors to make professionals of them. In response to the 
COVID-19, nations have made changes to their insolvency regimes.

These were captured in his co-edited Book, “COVID-19: Exploring the new normal in  insolvency”. He was a member of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Advisory Committee and Business and Human Rights (BHR) Committee set up by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, as well as the Fresh Start Committee set up by Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board (IBBI) of India. He is also the prime mover to 
start the “Journal of Corporate Affairs” (2021) - a one-of-its-kind journal in 
corporate affairs in India. His current interests, include assessing the impact of 
CSR projects using multilevel modeling and the intersection between public and 
corporate governance.

He has worked as a Consultant for the UNHabitat in Cambodia and 
International Federation of Red Cross Societies (IFRCS) and has delivered lectures 
at the Global Mayor’s Forum organized by Columbia University, NY. He has 
delivered a talk on his Book at the Bhopal Literature Festival (2021) and the 
Valley of Words in Musoorie, India. He has taught statistics and urban spatial 
structures to graduate students in the United States as well as delivered sessions to 
build the capacity of civil servants at the national and state academies.

In 2014, he wrote a book, “Hourglass Management Paradigm”, on how 
planners make decisions when faced with wicked problems and for ‘publics’ who 
do not behave rationally, as is typically assumed in most decision-making models. 
He has contributed chapters in several books and is a regular contributor to 
journals and leading newspapers, such as the Economic Times and Mint. In recent 
times, he has written a series of articles connected to management of COVID-19 
and dealing with its after effects.

He was Chief Secretary to the Government of Andhra Pradesh during 2021-
22. As Chief Secretary he leveraged on his primary strength - to make things work 
which were hitherto not working. His seven main accomplishments were - creating 
and implementing a State Indicator Framework to monitor Sustainable 
Development Goals (SDGs) at the village and ward level and connecting SDG 
indicators with geography (village and ward secretariat), resource mobilization for 
the state government, implementing the village and ward secretariat system, 
reorganizing districts to make them coterminous with Parliamentary Constituencies 
along with rightsizing of district administrative structures, restructuring of 52 State Government Departments, creation of a monitoring system call Feedback-Forward 
Framework which enabled the percolation of the know-how and know-what of 
Government programmes to implementation agencies and designing and 
implementation of the idea of consistent rhythms – the purpose being to achieve 
SDGs at each village/ward by using digital technology to combine the working of 
different departments and their functionaries.