Aarti has worked with top multinationals like PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), EXL Services and HCL Technologies Ltd. Aarti began her career with PwC where she developed expertise and analytical skills in the Financial and Technology sector. Her knowledge and experience spans across Finance, Audits, External Reporting and Control. At PwC she served clients across a wide range of sectors namely, IT, ITes, Communications, Trading and Development.

At HCL Technologies Ltd. she was involved in the migration of new Financial processes from UK and USA. She was also part of studies needing large database analysis, internal and external reporting. At EXL Services she teamed up with the Internal Audit department to monitor and evaluate how well risks could be managed across the organisation and assessing the adequacy of existing internal processes and controls.

Aarti holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Lady Shri Ram College (Delhi University) and was a topper in the college. She also completed her CA training from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

At TARI, Aarti is actively involved in areas of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility and is heading the Vigil Mechanism.

Akshata Gupta is a Healthcare Consultant with over three years of work experience in the health and social development sector. She specializes in health business administration, resource allocation and priority setting, critical thinking, and health economics. She has a Master’s in Health and Human Services Management from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia and a Bachelor’s of Technology (Genetic Engineering) from SRM University, Chennai.

Her expertise lies in health business administration, healthcare operations, and public health. She has previously worked as a CSR and Social Development Consultant at SahaManthran Pvt. Ltd. and as a Centre Manager for DCDC Healthcare Services at Kalra Hospital, New Delhi. She has considerable experience in program management, monitoring, and reporting. She has also worked as a Peer Education Officer at Deakin University where she conducted peer training sessions on responding to disclosures of sexual harm, gender equity, and bystander intervention in events of gender-based violence.

As a Research Consultant at TARI, Akshata is working in diverse fields. These primarily include public policy advocacy, research, business responsibility and sustainability reporting consultancy, etc.

Bhawna Bhushan holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the National Law School of India University and a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi.

Prior to joining Thought Arbitrage, Bhawna worked as a Political Consultant at the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) where she was part of the Strategic, Research, and Insights Team. This role entailed policy analysis of the state of Meghalaya, outlining various women-centric policies such as the Universal Basic Scheme and Health Card for women. She also conducted feasibility studies to ascertain budgetary requirements for implementing women-centric policies in Tripura.

Bhawna has a strong background in research and has authored several papers on topics related to women’s rights and other global issues. Her research paper titled ‘Analysing Human Rights Crisis of Rohingya Women and Policy Recommendations’ focused on understanding the policy problems faced by women in Myanmar. It was published in Gender Human Rights and Law-Volume 9. She also worked as a Research Intern at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) where she analysed the Indian media’s perception of China. A paper she wrote titled ‘Covid Vaccine Apartheid and the role of International Regulatory Bodies: A Humanitarian Crisis’ was published by Public Policy India, an independent knowledge platform for public policy.

As a Research Consultant at Thought Arbitrage, Bhawna, is a core team member engaged in research related to assessing the reasons that contribute to the limited participation of women in the labour force as well as analysing factors related to work, wealth, welfare, and well-being in the context of the gender gap in the formal sector in India and select South Asian countries vis-à-vis a better developed economy in the same region. This entails study of secondary data, correlating it with primary research.

Bhawna is an avid blogger and frequently writes on various issues related to women, security, and global supply chains.

Bijender Sharma is a Graduate in Commerce from the University of Delhi. Bijender has an overall work experience of 28 years. Before joining TARI, he worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for more than 18 years. In PwC, he was an Assistant Manager (Finance & Accounts). Apart from the regular functions of Accounting and Finance, he has got a diverse blend of experience and is involved in many internal projects. He was a core member of the Finance team for implementation of Oracle 9i and 11i and his role included discussions, developing, testing, trial run, and uploading of AP, AR, GL, and Asset Modules and making them go live with the Oracle Technical Team for PwC for internal use.

Bijender was also associated with the PwC Accounts Payable team in developing modules in Oracle and prepare internet banking payments and verify invoices and uploading the data of TDS/Service tax payments in oracle for the entire PwC Group.

Prior to joining PwC, Bijender worked with leading companies like Trimatic Engineering Company Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi, and M/s. Gyan Agarwal & Associate, Delhi, and obtained varied experience and considerable exposure in all spheres of Finance and Accounts. He is a valued team player.

Gayathri worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers for over 13 years before she joined TARI.  She has vast experience of dealing with large databases and supporting quantitative research and projects that use analytics as a tool.

Gayathri has been involved with Thought Arbitrage Research Institute since its inception and is engaged in assistance with its projects with IICA and other studies needing large database analysis and algorithms. She also extends support in the areas of finance and accounting along with managing administration and personnel related services.

Kaushik is the founding co-director of Thought Arbitrage Research Institute (TARI) which is a not for profit organisation set up under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act. TARI is one of the few privately-funded, independent and non-partisan Indian think-tanks on Corporate Governance, Sustainability, Economics and Public Policy. He has a graduate degree from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta and is a fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India with over 25 years of experience.

Kaushik retired in July 2010 from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) after spending over 22 years in practice out of which 17 years were as a partner. He has been a member of the India Leadership Team of PwC, managed the India Advisory Board of PwC, national IFRS leader, Corporate Governance Practice leader, deputy assurance leader amongst other national and global roles. He was earlier a partner with the Global Capital Markets Group of PwC International.

Kaushik has worked in the areas of corporate governance since 1999 when he participated in the Naresh Chandra Committee’s deliberations for developing the norms of Corporate Governance in India. He has also worked with Conference Board of the U.S.A., Asian Development Bank, Institute of Directors UK, Asian Institute of Corporate Governance, Genesis Park, USA, the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, CII, ASSOCHAM, Department of Public Enterprises, National Foundation for Corporate Governance etc. on governance matters.

He has been a founding member of CII’s National Council on Corporate Governance and has worked with some of the top Boards of Directors of Indian and multi-national companies on Corporate Governance initiatives and processes.

He was engaged with DFID for creation of governance criteria of the ESG framework for DFID, India’s private sector development group. The framework will be applied to DFID’s investment in private sector enterprises in 8 poorest states in India for over US 800 million as investment in private companies, who would be funded by DFID.

Kaushik has written for the Ministry of Corporate affairs, a report along with colleagues from TARI and IIM Calcutta on State of Corporate Governance in India. He has also worked with IICA and UN Global Compact to develop a report on fraud and corruption by private sector in India in 2013, which had been placed in the Indian Parliament.

He has worked with Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India on corporate governance and by Serious Fraud Investigation Office(SFIO) as an expert consultant for forensic evaluations. Kaushik is an academic member of the steering committee for SFIO and involved in developing a fraud prediction model based on analytics and algorithms using Bayesian principles. The model is being developed by Infosys.

He has co-authored two books – “India Means Business – How the Elephant Earned its Stripes” and “Corporate Governance – Myth to Reality” and also written over 100 thought papers on corporate governance, sustainability, business and policy issues in newspapers, journals and business magazines. Kaushik has also authored Hand Book for Independent Directors with EY which was published recently.

Kaushik serves as an independent director on the Board of HCL Infosystems Ltd. and some of its subsidiaries, NSL Renewable Power, Centennial Development Services etc. He is also a member of the Management Committee of Helpage India, PSI and UN Global Compact, India.

Kshama V Kaushik holds an Honours degree in Commerce from Delhi University and is a Fellow member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. She has worked with some of the top consulting firms and Indian companies over the past 33 years.

She is the founder director of Thought Arbitrage Research Institute (TARI), a not-for-profit company dedicated to India-focused research and application of such research in areas of corporate governance, sustainability issues and public policy. At TARI she conceptualises and leads research studies, construction of frameworks and indices and collaborations with a range of partners including public and private sector Indian companies, industry associations and multi-lateral agencies. Her abiding interests include governance, transparency, anti-corruption, and sustainability practices.

As Financial Management Analyst with Asian Development Bank (ADB) she helped manage ADB’s fiduciary risk and work closely with government agencies like CAG and Ministry of Finance to standardize and streamline financial management aspects.

Besides several thought papers and articles in newspapers and peer-reviewed journals, she has authored/co-authored several books:
• ‘Corporate Governance: Myth to Reality’, reference book on corporate governance, published by Lexis Nexis Butterworths, 2005
• ‘India Means Business’, reference book, Oxford University Press, 2012
• Handbook of Independent Directors-Upholding the Moral Compass, Lexis Nexis, 2016 2nd Ed) (Contributing and Editing Author)
• ‘CSR in India: Steering Business toward Social Change’ by Lexis Nexis, 2017

Kushagra Sharma is a Masters in Economics with specialization in Environmental Economics from the Madras School of Economics (MSE) and has completed his Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Delhi.

His project work during his Masters degree included qualitative research on Corporate Social Responsibility and WASH practices in India, and corporate contributions towards fighting Covid-19.

Kushagra’s research acumen covers qualitative and quantitative analysis (econometric analysis), with exposure in econometric and statistical tools and hands-on experience in STATA, R, Advanced Excel.

Prior to joining TARI, he worked as a Research Assistant at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development and Research (IGIDR) on the project titled: Interlocking Directorates. He also interned with ICICI BANK Ltd where he collated, analyzed and presented a report on the impact of Covid -19 on various sectors of the economy.

At TARI, he was a core team member on a project for FICCI CASCADE titled: Regulatory Interventions and illicit trade across borders: Impact on six key industries, which involved establishing a relationship between non-tariff measures and illicit trade, through detailed research, modelling and analysis. Currently he is involved in a project analyzing the limited participation of women in the workforce in corporate India.

Dr. Naveen Srivastava earned his doctorate from IIT Roorkee. He is a graduate of IIT Kharagpur’s postgraduate programme and also holds a postgraduate diploma in financial management. In addition, he earned a number of programs/certificates from prestigious international organisations and universities, including the IMF, ADB, Wharton School of Business, Indian School of Business, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Erasmus University, and Duke University.

Naveen has over 22 years of professional experience, including over 16 years in research, consulting, and analytics. In addition, he is an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Management Studies at Delhi University and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) in Kolkata.

Naveen is a director at TARI who has successfully completed a number of projects in a variety of fields, such as corporate governance and fraud, IoT and technology, the manufacturing sector, MSMEs, healthcare, illicit trade, industry competitiveness, and public policy. He has served as a consultant for a number of national organisations, including NITI Aayog, The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), the Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME), the Ministry of Social Justice and & Empowerment, all major industry bodies including ASSOCHAM, FICCI, and CII, and multilateral organisations including UK DFID, GIZ of Germany, and the UN Global Compact Network.

Naveen worked as a consultant for the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India to  Inclusiveness and Accessibility Index: A Toolkit for Organizations to promote Inclusiveness of Persons with Disabilities under the Accessible India Campaign.  As a consultant for the FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO), he created a Gender Parity Index: A Toolkit to Evaluate Gender Diversity & Empowerment of Women in India. The index is the first of its kind in India; it measures the extent of gender parity in the formal sector; it is comprehensive and global; and it focuses on gender parity at the micro level in the formal sector.

As a consultant for GIZ, Germany, and DC-MSME, Ministry of MSME, he prepared a report on Enabling Effective Implementation of Public Procurement Policy via a comprehensive survey and evaluation of MSME. This report analysed gaps in the effective implementation of public procurement policy and developed a guide for the effective implementation of such a policy. In addition, he has worked on a consultancy project for Microsoft India to assess the socio-economic impact of cloud adoption on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in India based on the responses of 250 SMBs who participated in a national survey conducted in 10 key cities.

Naveen played a pivotal role in preparing the report on “Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in India (2021” based on India’s largest primary healthcare survey conducted by IMRB- Kantar covering 2.34 lakh people in 21 states. He did this by analysing the rising cases of NCDs in the country and the social profile of suffering households.

Other important projects in which he was involved include corporate frauds for MCA, Government of India; ESG due diligence and assessment for UK DFID; the impact of smuggling and the illicit market on the Indian economy for FICCI Cascade; and the assessment and impact of Flagship Programs and the Make in India policy for ASSOCHAM.

Naveen has written numerous academic papers, policy papers, primers, book chapters, and online articles on a range of subjects including corporate governance, accounting and audit, fraud and public policy. He has also presented papers at a number of international and national conferences and participated in a number of workshops, webinars, and faculty development programmes related to these subjects. He is proficient in research design, econometric and statistical methods and tools.

Niladri is an experienced professional in the areas of Performance Improvement and Value Creation. He has worked across multiple sectors and geographies in his two decades of professional experience enabling leaders and organization improve their practices around performance, organization effectiveness thereby improving business results.

He consults with CEO’s /Leadership teams on Business Transformation, Organization Design and HR Strategy across industries and geographies and is a leader in our Mumbai office.

Prior to Thought Arbitrage he spend 11 years with the Aditya Birla Group in highly specialized internal consulting roles. In this role he engaged with both manufacturing and services businesses of the Group in the areas of Operational Improvement and Value Creation.

Prior to that he was a Faculty Member in the Infosys Leadership Institute, where his teaching and consulting focus was on Leadership Process Development, Strategy and Change Management. Earlier he worked with Pwc, ITC etc. in various roles.

Niladri is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Rosanna is a Chartered Accountant with over 17 years work experience, more than 12 of which were with PricewaterhouseCoopers. She is proficient in understanding business variables, values, principles and practices of corporate governance. Her domain knowledge spans across finance, external reporting and controls. She has served clients across a range of sectors, namely IT and ITeS, communications, trading and development. Her key engagements have included:

• – Review of financial statements with notes to accounts and accounting policies;
• – Assessment of corporate governance practices vis-à-vis regulatory requirements and best practices;
• – Evaluating internal control environments and devising appropriate audit strategies and
• – Financial analysis and comparison with industry benchmarks, compliance with national and international statutes

At TARI, Rosanna is an Associate Director working in the areas of corporate governance, public policy and sustainability development.

In the sphere of governance Rosanna is primarily involved in the evaluation of corporate governance practices of companies thereby helping them to improve their governance, reporting and disclosures. She also works on internal controls and process reviews. She has co-authored a report titled “Coal Industry: Comparative Strengths and Challenges for India” covering key problems facing the industry and Coal India in particular, including the company’s corporate governance issues. She has co-authored academic literature on corporate governance and responsible business, particularly in light of the enactment of the Companies Act, 2013. In this context, she is a contributing author to TARI’s latest book titled ‘Handbook for Independent Directors – Upholding the Moral Compass” (Lexis-Nexis), published in collaboration with Ernst & Young. It acts as a guide for independent directors, and is expected to help current and prospective independent directors understand the responsibilities and expectations in the role

Rosanna has worked extensively on TARI’s ground-breaking study which estimated the size of illicit markets and their impact on investment, innovation and inter-state tax arbitrage. She has also written a paper on the bidi industry and its impact on consumers. She is currently involved in developing a global toolkit to assess the unrecorded alcohol market in association with ICAP/IARD and various sector studies on Indian manufacturing keeping in mind their potential contribution to the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

Rosanna has worked in the areas of sustainability and CSR including development of CSR strategies and delivering GRI training modules as a GRI certified trainer at sessions conducted by TARI. She has co-authored the report “Power to the Planet: Sustainability Disclosures by the Indian Power Sector” prepared in collaboration with TERI. Rosanna also has to her credit several articles on the subject of sustainability in business magazines. She was extensively involved in the groundwork for the preparatory phase of TARI’s study to assess Social Return on Investment and preliminary consultations with stakeholders.

Rosanna is a B. Com (Hons) graduate from Jesus & Mary College (Delhi University) and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Shiv’s professional experience spanning more than 2 decades includes a diverse set of strategic and operations management roles.

Starting off in the telecom sector, he facilitated the set up and thereafter integration of two major cellular operators. His stint in the telecom sector included preparing business models, setting up management information systems, financial and treasury systems, establishing business rules for risks, revenue assurance and also developing “industry first practices” in automation and operating processes. His stint culminated as the Circle CFO for Maharashtra in Idea Cellular Limited (Maharashtra is one of the biggest revenue generators for Idea).

Moving on he was selected by the Aditya Birla Group to manage business performance and governance in the Office of the Chairman Mr. KM Birla as his Principle Executive Assistant. In this role he advised Mr Birla and coached the senior most Group leadership on a variety of issues across the Metals, Telecom, Retail and IT & ITES sectors.

His most recent stint was in a Strategic and Business Developmental role as the Head of Strategy and Rural Markets of the Aditya Birla Financial Services Group. He had strategy oversight on 8 financial service businesses. He build the Rural Market platform to enable financial inclusion across India. In addition he drove strategic initiatives like implementation of multi-function Business intelligence system, dynamic cash collection, distribution and sales management process and developing SOP’s, service standards for business excellence and enhance the overall efficiency of the organization.

Souvik is a qualified lawyer engaged with Thought Arbitrage as a Principal Consultant, in projects on corporate governance, public policy and legal analysis. His areas of work cover research-based advisory on various aspects of corporate governance, apart from contributing to general research initiatives of the firm. He has over eight years’ experience in research and analysis and the same has been gained through working as a compliance analyst, business researcher and regulatory correspondent.

He was previously associated with Clifford Chance LLP apart from other local law firms, working on diverse areas of public policy, business intelligence and general regulatory compliance.

Souvik had earlier worked with The Economic Times as a regulatory correspondent, writing on macro-economy and legal matters. He has co-authored the Handbook for Independent Directors, a book published by TARI in association with Ernst & Young (LexisNexis, 2015).

Subhomoy Bhattacharjee with 18 years of experience in journalism currently writes for the Indian Express as Deputy Editor, on public policy including regulatory issues, finance and urban development. His column on finance and economy appears in both Indian Express and Financial Express.

He is the author of “Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in India; Myths and Realities” published by Anthem Press. He has recently authored a study on Land Acquisition Act, a project on comparative land prices in India’s selected districts and its relation with industrialisation, commissioned by GIZ, India and TARI.

Subhomoy has read Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, and also holds a post graduate diploma in Journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. He has also worked in the Govt of India for several years in the Indian Information Service. He has earlier worked with The Economic Times and Business Standard.

He has regularly advised fund managers and appears as an expert commentator on the public broadcasters Doordarshan, Rajya Sabha TV and All India Radio on their business news programmes. He is a member of the Editors Guild and the Commonwealth Journalists Association.

At TARI Subhomoy has led the project on land pricing in India

Venkat Rangan is a Post Graduate in Business Administration, Commerce and Graduate in Law. He has qualified CS Intermediate Examination.

Venkat has an overall work experience of 29 years. Before Joining TARI, he worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for more than 19 years. In PwC, he was a Senior Manager (Finance & Accounts). Apart from the regular functions of Accounting and Finance, he has got a diverse blend of experience and involved in many internal projects. He was a core member from Finance for Implementation of Oracle 9i and 11i and his role included discussions, developing, testing, trial run and uploading of AP, AR, GL and Asset Modules and make them go live with the Oracle Technical Team for PwC internal use.

Venkat was also associated with the PwC iPower Technical Team in developing modules in iPower including Debt Write off System (DWOS), Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and matching with revenue and uploading TDS Certificates received from clients for all PwC Group for 4 years. He was also part of the Project 3C team which is an initiative for the cost reduction exercise across all Line of Services (LOS), Pan India. He represented the Board of Trustees of PwC India Foundation (a CSR initiative of PwC) from Finance functions was and part of the due diligence team for the selection of the proposed NGOs.

Prior to joining PwC, Venkat worked with leading companies like AGIO India, (a group Company of AGIO Counter Trade Pte Ltd. Singapore), Willard India New Delhi and Chokani Group of Companies, Chennai. Venkat’s focused academics, varied experience and considerable exposure to all aspects of Finance and Accounts have strengthened his competence to be a valued team player.