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 reportings 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 migration of the new financial processes from UK and USA. She was also part of studies needing large database analysis, internals and external reporting. At EXL Services she teamed up with the Internal Audit department to monitor and evaluate how well risks are being 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 college. She has also qualified the CA Intermediate examination.

At TARI, Aarti is a Manager Client Services and has been actively involved in areas of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility and in compiling the Sustainability Reports for top listed organisations based on ISO 26000 standards and GRI indicators. She is also a part of the Ombudsman Function.

Ashi qualified as a Chartered Accountant in year 2017. She also holds a B.Com (Honours) graduate degree from Delhi University. She has worked with ICAI – HO (Audit committee) as Management Trainee from July 2017 to February 2018. At ICAI, her responsibilities included checking financial statements to ensure that these were prepared in compliance with the accounting standards and significant accounting policies; reviewing and determining the efficacy of Internal controls system; checking and plugging-in any revenue leakages and wasteful expenditures and reviewing the financial and risk management policies of ICAI as well as the functioning of Internal and Statutory Audit.

She completed her CA articleship training with Kumar Chopra & Associates in year 2014 and during her training period she was involved in Statutory Audits, Internal Audits, handling Taxation and Accounting work. Her training span across a wide range of sectors that included Manufacturing companies, Co-operative societies and Statutory bodies. Ashi also has working knowledge of accounting softwares like Tally (ERP 9), QuickBooks.

At TARI, Ashi is working as a Research Consultant on a project that involves developing early fraud detection indicators based on statistical analysis of the reported cases.

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 has worked with some of the top consulting firms and Indian companies over the past 24 years.

She is the founder director of Thought Arbitrage Research Institute (TARI) where she conceptualises and leads research studies 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.

A snapshot of her range of work experience is: Worked extensively on corporate governance assessments for multi-lateral agencies, fund houses, promoters and potential investees including developing governance assessment frameworks especially for India based on international guidelines and Indian regulatory requirements which is used by DFID to assess the ESG standing of potential investee entities. She has applied this maturity model framework to provide specific guidance to the investee entity to move up the value chain in ESG parameters. She has also co-developed a governance framework focussed on evaluating management actions and their intent from the point of view of equity, probity and efficacy in order to determine the quality of governance, management actions and the associated risks due to governance gaps, which has been applied on several Indian companies.

In the areas of sustainability reporting and impact assessment: Conceptualised and lead several studies focussed on sustainability reporting among Indian companies. She has in-depth knowledge of sustainability practices adopted by global and Indian companies, technology adopted for mitigation of adverse impacts and measurement metrics used by various industry sectors. She developed training modules for GRI Certified Training Partnership. She is a GRI certified trainer and has conducted several training sessions for a cross-section of Indian industry. She has also adapted an international impact assessment methodology to the Indian context using authentic data sources,which has been applied to several CSR initiatives of Indian companies. Prepared medium to long term sustainability strategies for various Indian companies including large public sector companies.

Kshama has worked in areas of capacity building and development and delivery of training modules. She was commissioned as Governance Expert with Ministry of Corporate Affairs involving development of training modules and conducting training programmes. She conceptualised and conducted training on governance and capacity building for all CEO’s of State Owned Enterprises in Assam, India and for Central Public Sector Enterprises based in Delhi. She has developed specialised content and conducted special programmes for Indian Corporate Law Services (ICLS) officers (probationers and mid-career) on matters of governance, accounting and law.

She has in-depth knowledge and experience in preparing financial statements and reports, managing finances of medium and large entities and conducting financial evaluation of a range of entities.

Kshama has co-authored two books – ‘Corporate Governance: Myth to Reality’ a reference book on corporate governance (Lexis NexisButterworths) and ‘India Means Business’ on the history of Indian business (Oxford University Press). She has also written over 50 articles including reports for newspapers, business magazines and professional and peer-reviewed journals.

Kshama holds an Honours degree in Commerce and is a Fellow member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Naveen, is an Associate Director at Thought Arbitrage Research Institute (TARI), where he works in the areas of corporate governance, industry analytics, corruption, fraud and public policy. Naveen holds doctorate in corporate governance from IIT Roorkee.

An expertise in corporate governance, Naveen has deep understanding of issues, values, principles and practices of corporate governance. His deep domain knowledge spans across finance, business analytics, econometrics, risk management, valuation, transparency and disclosures.

Naveen has more than 10 years of experience and has worked on a number of projects. He has been a consultant to many national organizations: IICA of Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Ministry of MSME, CII, ASSOCHAM and others; Multilateral organization: UK DFID, GIZ of Germany; UN Global Compact Network.

Naveen is associated with the Emerging Markets Corporate Governance Network which is a part of the IFC Global Corporate Governance Forum. VIP Sight a German Proxy Institutional firm has engaged him as a representative from India to present his views on issues and developments on corporate governance in India. He is one of the few scholars of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN). He is also a recipient of the AIMS International Outstanding Doctoral Student Award for his research in corporate governance.

Naveen has authored a number of papers on corporate governance and financial management, which have been published in international and national journals. He has also participated in and presented his work at several national and international conferences of repute.

Naveen is an Engineer and postgraduate alumni of IIT Kharagpur and also holds a post-graduate diploma in Financial Management.

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.

Rewa, a Principal Consultant with TARI is a fellow member and rank holder of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). She holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi. Rewa is a gold medalist in the intermediate examinations of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India. She has worked with some of the top multinational companies and consulting firms like Citigroup, GE Money and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Rewa began her career with PwC, where she developed deep domain knowledge and advisory skills in the financial and technology sector. At Citigroup she worked as Credit and Risk Management Services manager handling credit operations, documentation, credit approval, relationship management and related activities for mainly Indian clients giving insights and understanding of nuances of family owned businesses. At GE Money she handled the financial planning and analysis for their consumer finance business. She was involved in cost and benefit analysis for various projects, product profitability and other business decisions, involving critical success factors.
In her three years with TARI she has been working in the areas of corporate governance, capital market functioning, counterfeiting, public policy matters, corruption and fraud. She has worked with large economic databases and econometric models, statistical tools including NSSO, ASI, SPSSetc. for developing inter-relations between consumption, production and market volatility for different commodities.

Rewa has been actively involved in research on corporate governance and has co-authored three papers on the state of corporate governance in India which are part of the publication of a joint research project with the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta. These papers have evaluated the role of the gatekeepers (SEBI/ RBI/ Auditors) of corporate governance in India using various statistical tools. She has been involved in the appraisal of corporate governance practices of large Indian corporates through analysis of annual reports, statutory filings and corporate communications vis-à-vis regulatory requirement.

In a study titled “Taking Stock-Playing in the Indian Capital Markets”, Rewa has done an in-depth evaluation of the workings of both primary and secondary capital markets over a time period of five years. She has examined instances of fraud and corruption in Indian corporates over a period of fifteen years in a report that was jointly published by Global Compact and International Business Leaders Forum, “Understanding the Demand and Supply Equation of Corruption and Fraud”.

She has done extensive research on the functioning of illicit markets across the Indian economy and ascertained the social and economic impact of the same in a study titled, “Economic and Social Impact of Counterfeiting and Smuggling in India.” done under collaboration with FICCI.  She has also been actively involved in designing the implementation mechanism along with tools for MSME public procurement policy, a project undertaken for the Ministry of Micro Small & Medium Enterprises and GIZ.

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.

Saumya is a member of the Institute of Actuaries of India, Mumbai and a certified member of National Securities Depository Limited and National Institute of Securities Markets. Her prior experience at ICICI Bank Ltd included data analysis, research and MIS preparation of potential trade clients and their risk taking capacities to invest in products of the bank. Her experience gives her a wide perspective of the functioning of corporate houses in India.

At TARI, Saumya is working as a Senior Manager – Research. She is using her academic knowledge in mathematical and statistical analysis on various projects related to public policy and economics. Her experience includes working with large datasets and other statistical data and reports.

Saumya was also closely involved with the launch of the ‘Alliance for Integrity’ initiative in India that aims at promoting clean business practices and fair competition as a means to a stable, secure and responsible business investment climate. The Alliance is supported by FICCI and GIZ – the implementing arm of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Saumya has worked on TARI’s study on illicit markets in India which estimated the size of illicit markets and their impact on investment, innovation and inter-state tax arbitrage. She has contributed to the global toolkit for assessing the unrecorded alcohol market being developed in collaboration with IARD.

Saumya has contributed to TARI’s study on India’s manufacturing sector and its contribution to the Government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative launched in 2014. She has also worked extensively on similar studies on specific sectors including Construction and Textiles and Apparels.

Saumya has also worked in the areas of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility at TARI. She has worked extensively on impact assessment of a CSR project for a leading tyre manufacturer using the SROI global methodology and also in developing a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for their active CSR projects.

A passionate team player, optimistic and adaptive, Saumya is a post graduate in Mathematics from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, where she was awarded the Academic Prize for Best Student. She also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Banking from ICICI Manipal Academy for Banking & Insurance, Bangalore.

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.