developing clean energy in India

Vaishali Nigam Sinha has some advice for anyone starting a company with their spouse: “Be mindful about it.” What that meant for Sinha, who co-founded renewable energy company ReNew Power with her husband Sumant Sinha, was knowing what each of them was good at. She had to be clear about the role she wanted for herself and understanding where she could add value.

Speaking in ReNew’s offices in Gurugram, near Delhi, Vaishali, 54, is warm and elegant, wearing traditional Indian dress. “Sumant and I are very different, but that’s a good thing — there is power in diversity,” she says. The couple have been married for three decades and have been working together for 14 years.

She has always been interested in environmental issues, but worked in financial services in the US, UK and India for several years before switching to sustainable energy.

ReNew is now one of India’s biggest green energy companies. Its latest quarterly financial results confirm it reached a landmark of 10 gigawatts of installed capacity across a portfolio of wind, solar and hydroelectric power assets in August. It is committed to expand this capacity to 15.6GW. That compares with a total of about 450GW for the world’s most populous country.

I like roles that are a little bit ambassadorial, a little bit analytical

The couple launched the company in 2012 after securing $200mn in backing from US investment bank Goldman Sachs. In 2021, ReNew listed on Nasdaq. This week, ReNew’s market capitalisation hit $2.27bn.

Sumant serves as chair and chief executive of the business, and Vaishali is chair of sustainability and head of the ReNew Foundation, the company’s corporate social responsibility arm.

Vaishali describes herself as an “accidental entrepreneur”, but what really surprises her is ending up leading such an infrastructure-heavy company. “I am a people person,” she says. “I like roles that are a little bit ambassadorial, a little bit analytical. I have never been that interested in how the machinery works.”

Vaishali Sinha grew up in India, the daughter of a civil servant and a homemaker. They moved house frequently for her father’s job, usually to remote areas, but she says that made for a wonderful childhood often surrounded by nature. While based in Shillong, in the eastern state of Meghalaya, she and her friends would roam the forested hills, undaunted by the presence of bears and jackals.

At Delhi University, where she read politics and economics, she joined a student ecological group. Vaishali considered a career in development and secured a scholarship for a masters in public policy at Columbia University, New York — where Sumant, then her boyfriend, was also heading.

After her masters, internships at the World Bank in Washington left her frustrated at how slowly international organisations were able to effect change. So she then pursued a career on Wall Street, focusing on emerging markets. 

For the next 10 years, she worked for JPMorgan, Daiwa, and Prudential in New York and London. However, all the while the couple were keeping an eye out for opportunities in India.

Then, in 2002, their son was born with a health condition that doctors suggested would be helped by a warmer climate, so the family relocated to Mumbai, where Sumant joined Aditya Birla Group as chief financial officer and Vaishali cared for their son. “That was a transformative period — I didn’t know when I would get back to having a healthy child and being able to work,” she explains.

That was a transformative period. I didn’t know when I would get back to having a healthy child and being able to work

A couple of years later, though, she decided to return to work, becoming head of corporate relations at DSP Merrill Lynch in Mumbai, before moving to Daiwa Securities and then to the India section of Macquarie, the Australian global financial services group.

By then, Vaishali and Sumant were tired of juggling two high-powered careers, each answering to a different organisation. So the idea of working together coalesced. “It’s always that problem of ‘you go and I’ll stay with the kids’, or ‘you have to stay because now it’s my turn’,” she says.

They decided to step out on their own, but in which direction? India’s energy market provided the answer: the country had a chronic shortage of power, and the electricity it did generate was highly polluting, coming principally from coal.

Sumant, at the time, was chief operating officer at wind power company Suzlon Energy, which had opened his eyes to the potential of green energy in India. In 2010, therefore, the couple set up an investment platform, Savant, that would ultimately develop into ReNew.

“In the early days, it was crazy,” recalls Vaishali. “But, a couple of years in, when we were reaching for our first wind project, I had to take stock and work out what my role would be.”

She focused on sustainability, and balancing the imperatives of a fast-growing business with achieving wider environmental and charitable ambitions. To do this, she became the driving force behind the launch of the ReNew Foundation, in 2018.

We didn’t want it to be just a regular ‘Mr and Mrs’ company

After a wider deal in August with US tech company Microsoft, approximately $15mn will go to the ReNew Foundation. It will be directed to mitigating the effects of climate change on underprivileged communities and providing “last-mile” electricity supplies. The foundation is also training people in remote rural areas, especially women, as solar panel or water pump technicians.

“For me, that’s the most exciting part of my job — ensuring climate justice and making sure these communities don’t get left behind in the energy transition,” says Vaishali.

She is also proud of building a company with her husband in a way that has been “sane” and “rewarding”.

“We didn’t want it to be just a regular ‘Mr and Mrs’ company,” she says. “I feel we have achieved that.”