Vineet Mittal is a serial entrepreneur who has built multiple large-scale businesses. After creating successful unicorns in the BPO and IT space, he floated Welspun Energy in 2010, becoming India’s largest renewable energy company with an installed base of 1.2 GW. In 2016, the platform was monetized successfully with the sale to Tata Power at a US $ 1.4 bn valuations. The Thermal power business of the group was also sold successfully to Adani Group.
He strongly believes that energy is inversely proportional to poverty. With increased energy access, India can overcome its poverty problems and provide its citizens with a better quality of life. Driven by his passion for sustainability and clean energy transition, in 2017, he floated the second platform and named it ‘Avaada’. Avaada means the Promise of a sustainable future and comes from two words, ‘Ayurveda’ and ‘Vaada’, which means the science of life and Promise, respectively.
Mr Mittal is a strong proponent of advancing sustainability through robust business models. He has been actively advocating the concepts of Community Development Certificates (CDC) and Grow Forest Certificate (GFC) with the governments he developed. Both the instruments target creating a marketplace for achieving sustainability objectives of increasing forest cover, developing social infrastructure in terms of healthcare access, education, and so on through a strong incentive mechanism.
Mr Mittal is a regular speaker on clean energy transition at important national and international events. A leading and influential industry voice, he is a regular invitee in all policy consultations by bodies like Niti Aayog, Ministries and Govt. departments, etc.
An alumnus of Harvard Business School, Mr Mittal currently holds the position of Chairman of the CII sub-committee on Hydrogen usage and standards, Chair of the CII National Council on climate change and Chair of the ‘Make in India’ Task Force. In 2012 and 2014, Vineet was conferred with the “Solar Man of the Year” title. He is an active member speaker at World Economic Forum. He is on B20’s task force for financing growth and infrastructure and Energy, Resource Efficiency & Sustainability. He is also the former India Chair of the World Business Council of Sustainable Development (WBCSD) ‘s Renewables Low Carbon Technology platform program.
