Chairperson, CII Awards on Excellence for women in STEM &
Chief Sustainability officer, Renew & Chair, Renew Foundation.
Vaishali Nigam Sinha is Co-founder of ReNew, a leading
decarbonisation solutions company listed on NASDAQ under the
ticker ‘RNW’. As Chairperson Sustainability, Vaishali has been
responsible for ReNew’s emergence as a global ESG trailblazer,
advancing the Net-Zero agenda, and delivering outcome-driven ESG
strategies with top global rankings.
Vaishali is the Founding Chair of the ReNew Foundation—the
company’s philanthropic arm—driving the ReNew India Initiative for
pathbreaking work in corporate social responsibility.
Initiatives led by Vaishali have had an impact in the remotest corners
of India, positively shaping more than 1 million lives across 250 villages in the country. One of the
projects designed and implemented under her leadership has been a first-of-its kind program,
showcased at the 2022 Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Change Conference (COP27), to train thousands
of salt pan women workers in the country, helping them secure more remunerative jobs with
significantly better working conditions in the clean energy sector. Her commitment to social causes
such as sustainable and inclusive development has placed her as a key figure in the energy sector
from the global south.
A member of the World Economic Forum’s South Asia Regional Action Group and a senior advisor
at their Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, Vaishali is an active member of their global advisory
council for the 1 Trillion Trees Initiative. Further, she is part of the Global Alliance for Sustainable
Energy and serves on their Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Energy Transition Taskforce.
Vaishali is also Co-Chair of the Finance and Infrastructure Task Force of B20, the Global Business
Forum of G20 Brazil.
Vaishali sits on multiple boards, including the UN Global Compact Network India, and is the
chairperson of their gender committee. She also chairs the Confederation of Indian Industry’s
National Committee on Women in Energy. Additionally, Vaishali is on the advisory board of
Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and the Columbia Global
Centre, Mumbai.
A regular speaker at international forums such as the Conference of the Parties of the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, World Economic Forum and the US-India
Strategic Partnership Forum, Vaishali has written extensively on sustainability, corporate social
responsibility, and gender parity in India and abroad. Vaishali is co-editor of the T20 compendium
of essays, Pathways to Equality, which explores the social, political, and economic facets of
achieving gender equality. She has been listed among the ‘100 People Transforming Business’ by
Business Insider in 2022.
Vaishali has completed the Owners and Presidents Management Program from Harvard Business
School and has a master’s in public policy from Columbia University’s SIPA, where she has been
an American Association of University Women scholar.