CA. Atul Kumar Gupta, is the founder promoter and director of ESG Research Foundation. A staunch leader has risen to the highest echelon of accounting profession to acquire position of President of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for the year 2020-21, the second largest accounting body in the world after being its Vice-president in the year 2019-20. He has served the Accountancy Profession for more than two decades and is widely respected for his strong organisational skills and deep insight in the affairs of profession. A commerce and a law graduate by education, he served as Chairman of Digital Accounting and Assurance Board, Board of Studies, IT Committee and Indirect Taxes Committee of the ICAI.

With deep interest in the research, he is credited for the project of preparation of accrual-based financial statements of the Indian Railways (third largest Railway of world) under the ambit of Accounting Research Foundation.

With his diverse and deep knowledge, he has served in various governmental bodies in past. He has been first Chairman of the Accounting and Finance Services Sectional Committee constituted by the Bureau of Indian Standards. He has also been member of Government Accounting Standards Advisory Board (GASAB), Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority (IRDA), SEBI’s Primary Market Advisory Committee.

On International front, he is on the Board of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), XBRL International.. He, earlier, has been the Chairman of Committee on Education, Training & CPD of SAFA, Board Member of SAFA, IIRC, PFC committee of CAPA.

Being thoroughly conversant with the professional concerns and demands of his times, CA. Gupta has authored many relevant books and has published numerous articles in leading newspapers, magazines and professional newsletters, and delivered lectures in about 1600 seminars and conferences.

CA Deepak Batra is the founder promoter and director of ESG Research Foundation. Deepak specializes in policy formulation, project finance, and advisory to Smart cities, forensic audits, risk management and management consulting. He has worked globally and has experience of working in china, various European countries, Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Dubai, Qatar etc.

Deepak is an eminent fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He is also qualified in law. He has been Project Director in number of World Bank aided projects. He has 30+ years of experience in working with leading PSUs and over 200+ State/Local bodies, including banks, Indian railway and urban local bodies. He has also experience in substantially all phases of corporate recovery process. He also mentors number of startups and advised clients with independent, formal valuation opinions that serve a variety of objectives, including business acquisitions or mergers, refinancing & reorganization, buy-sell agreements, tax or regulatory compliance, etc.

He is actively involved with many professional bodies and societies and is also part of various state/regional committees. He is an active speaker at various National and International Forums and conferences.

CA Spandan Shah is a director at ESG Research Foundation. He is an ESG consultant and a value chain management expert with 10+ years of international work experience, having worked with Big 4 firms in India, London and Dublin.

Spandan has completed his MBA from Imperial College London, where he specialised in strategy, climate change, and sustainability. Spandan advises companies on ESG strategy, circular economy, ESG reporting, and sustainable business transformations. Spandan is also the founder of GreenAlytics, a UK-based ESG analytics and reporting start-up.

Spandan has authored various thought-leadership articles on ESG and Sustainability, and regularly also conducts session on ESG topics at various forums in India. He is also a Director at ESG Research Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation in India, engaged in increasing awareness of the ESG agenda within the accounting and wider business community in India.

Recent projects include supporting a $500 million UK-headquartered company with ESG reporting requirements as part of their funding arrangements and working with a $10 million family-owned Indian mining company in assessing their GHG emissions (Scope 1 and Scope 2) across six operational locations.

Spandan is currently pursuing Global Reporting Initiative accreditation – which is one of the oldest and widely accepted ESG reporting standard globally.

Outside of work, Spandan is involved in various non-profit and impact focused initiatives. Since 2013, he is associated as a volunteer with an Ahmedabad based NGO engaged in providing education to less-privileged kids. Currently, he also serves as a Trustee/Director at AIESEC UK, a charity organisation in the UK.