About Us

WEFT Research is founded and led by Rekha. She is an economist with over 20 years’ experience in policy research and analysis on sustainable energy, energy access, energy pricing, decentralised renewable energy, clean cooking energy access and water inequities. Rekha has worked with TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) for over ten years in various roles. She helped set up the Ashden India Renewable Energy Collective as a think-tank along with a group of enterprises that have won the prestigious Ashden Awards. In her projects, she has engaged with a range of clients including World Bank, Asian Development Bank, GIZ, DfID, Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, Climate Parliament, various ministries of the Government of India and a number of energy companies. Rekha has developed energy-water plans for rural clusters, conducted field impact assessments of energy price volatility and water stress on communities and has devised elaborate systems of indicators such as one to measure country-level energy security risks and vulnerabilities.

An engineer and economist, Suresh has over three decades’ experience in the corporate sector in oil and gas, fertilizer, agro-chemicals, real estate and retail. He is passionate about the rights of marginalised groups and believes that business performance is closely inter-twined with social and environmental responsibility.

Hari Natarajan has around 18 years of experience in the energy sector, especially the clean energy and energy access space in India. During this period, he has been involved in a wide range of activities spanning grass-root level interventions, incubation, business development support, enterprise & end-user financing, regulatory & policy level engagement and networking, including the establishment and management of an industry association for decentralized renewable energy enterprises. Technology solutions that he has worked with include solar home systems, mini-grids, solar pumping, pico & micro hydro systems, biogas and biomass systems, improved cookstoves, etc. He has also been involved in utility scale policy and regulatory interventions post the Electricity Act 2003.

An anthropologist and economist, Nitish has extensive research and field experience in water and sanitation and in sustainable agriculture practices in India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and USA.  As a Consulting Institutional Specialist for the Asian Development Bank and World Bank, he has been involved in strengthening institutional capacity of the provinces for investment planning, project design & implementation, and resource management.

Naveen Kapoor has over four decades’  experience in the Indian corporate sector in Agri segment  especially in plant nutrition, seeds, crop protection, specialty plant nutrients and agri retail.  He has extensively been involved in developing  sustainable agri solutions for improving  farm productivity, resource use efficiency, agri value system  and  farmers’ connect through hub and spoke model. He has closely worked with  industry associations, government bodies and agriculture research institutions  for policy advocacy in agri sector for innovation in plant nutrient products, appropriate cropping sytems, market linkages and improvement in agronomic practices. He has been a member of the CII National Council on Agriculture.

Ramesh Iyer has over 30 years of experience in engineering consultancy, turnkey contracting and EPC projects management (concept to commissioning) spanning metals, infrastructure including power, oil & gas, and pipelines sectors.  In his long tenure with MECON, India’s frontline engineering consulting and contracting enterprise, he has been associated with over ten steel plant projects related to rolling mills in Steel Plants in all activities right from the conceptualization stage to final commissioning.

A BEE-certified Energy Efficiency Auditor, Ramesh has also been involved in power transmission and distribution projects like APDRP, for Ministry of Power and PFC and in power system studies for improvement of efficiency of the system, DPR preparation, and implementation of the project. He has also been involved in LNG pipelines and city gas distribution projects.

Rashmi Gopal is a qualified engineer with close to a decade of experience in the engineering and software industries. A passion to work on environmental concerns led her to the field of environmental education, where, over the past 15 years, she has worked extensively with teachers, students, businesses and governments in India and the Sultanate of Oman on designing and executing environmental awareness programmes. She interacts with businesses on consultancy projects and facilitates Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. Her interest lies in sensitizing young adults and teachers on different aspects of sustainable development and towards this she has developed a host of teaching and training aids on environmental issues such as water management, renewable energy, rainwater harvesting and climate change.