Innovative People

Ashish Puntambekar

Ashish Puntambekar is the Chief Creative Officer of the Nataraja Institute of Strategic Design and heads its Design Lab where he is focusing on Digital Technology applications in Various fields including Fintech and Education. He has over 25 years of experience working with some of the finest talent globally in the Energy and Infrastructure sectors and specifically in the area of large Infrastructure project design and design thinking where he is a specialist.  

He has been Lead Designer for the Defence Industrial Corridor ( DIC ) project which has recently received an investment commitment of Rs 40,000 Crores from the Govt of India in the Feb, 2018 union budget. The Prime Minister has personally launched this massive Defence equipment manufacturing project and two large DICs will now to be built at Bundelkhand and along the Chennai – Bangalore route. Likely commissioning date of both DIC’s is Jan ‘ 2027.

Besides the Defence project, he has recently been the convener of an International Advisory Board ( IAB ) with Harvard Economists, Former G – 7 Finance Ministers, Foreign Ambassadors and Defence Analysts as members. His expertise in the Geopolitics of Petroleum, his deep understanding of Middle East history and politics and his knowledge of technology shifts in the Energy Industry have earned him a name in the energy analyst community internationally. He is also an expert invitee at the Asian Development Bank ( ADB ) where his work on Urban Equity Withdrawal based financing has been presented. Apart from this he has written articles on Geopolitics, Energy Security & Military – Industrial strategy for the Indian Defence Review magazine.
 
Ashish has worked in a number of diverse roles. He started his career as a project engineer working in a large petrochemicals complex and then moved on to various increasingly senior engineering, business and senior management positions on assignments involving Power plants , Ports, LNG Terminals , Oil Refineries and Pipelines. He has also worked as an Energy Derivatives Trader for a period of 5 years where he has traded crude oil flat price and petroleum product derivatives on all major commodity exchanges and OTC Markets / Investment banks around the world.

Over the years, he has designed several multi billion dollar projects which are under active consideration by the Indian Government :

1. The Defence Industrial Corridor Project
2. The Vivekanand Secondary Education & Skills Development Megaproject
3. The Indian East Coast Energy Corridor Project
4. The Mumbai Megaproject – Eastern Waterfront and Artificial Islands
5. The Indian Healthcare Megaproject ( Under development )
6. The Ganges River Basin Re-Juvenation Megaproject ( Under development )

Strategic Objective : One of the objectives of the author is to help make India the worlds largest construction market. The focus therefore is not just on robust project design, but also on financial innovation which is critical to bring these large projects to life … and in the process create approx. 65 Million New Jobs in India by 2027.

Languages Ashish Puntambekar speaks:

English
Hindi