OUR TEAM
Pratik Agarwal,
Director
Pratik Agarwal is the Director of Serentica Renewables, a green energy company that focuses on providing round-the-clock carbon-free power to large consumers of energy in India.
Pratik is also the Managing Director of Sterlite Power and is also a non-executive director at Sterlite Technologies Limited and Sterlite Investment Managers Ltd. Previously, he has held directorship positions in Sterlite Ports, Vizag General Cargo Berth Ltd, and Speedon Networks Limited.
Under his leadership, Sterlite Power has grown from a USD 150mn project in 2010 to developing 30 projects across India & Brazil, worth ~USD 6bn. In 2017 Sterlite spun-out its Indian operating assets into a yield platform called IndiGrid – India’s first power sector Invit (Infrastructure Investment Trust). IndiGrid, was subsequently acquired by a consortium of Infrastructure funds and co-investors.
Pratik has pioneered the use of cutting-edge technologies in the design, engineering, and construction of transmission systems, including the use of heli-crane technology, for the first time in Asia. In 2019, Sterlite Power won the coveted International Project Management Association Gold award (highest honor) in the mega-projects category, and the Standard & Poor Global Platts Energy Award for Construction Project of the year.
Pratik is passionate about climate change and the role that companies can play in reversing this phenomenon. Serentica Renewables, which is built as a sustainable energy platform, will provide industries with round-the-clock clean energy, thereby supporting India’s clean energy transition as well as net zero goals.
Recently, Pratik was named the Economic Times CEO of the Year Award at the Energy Leadership Summit 2022. In 2018, he had also received Economic Times 40 under 40 award, which recognizes young business leaders under the age of forty.
Pratik is the chairman of sub-committee on Power Transmission at the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), co-chair of the committee on Infrastructure and Real Estate at IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry, member of the Indian advisory board of the India Brazil Chamber of Commerce (IBCC) and the current President of Electric Power Transmission Association (EPTA) of India.
He has a Bachelor of Science degree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA degree from the London Business School.
Akshay Hiranandani,
Chief Executive Officer
Akshay is driven by the pursuit of making renewable energy a feasible solution for energy-intensive industries. At Serentica, Akshay leads the Corporate Finance function, managing & strategizing capital raise and allocation for the sustainable energies platform that is focused on providing round the clock green energy to some of the largest energy industries in the country. His career spans two decades, fifteen of which were spent in Corporate Finance and Development. He has raised over $1.5 bn across debt and equity while working for domestic and international developers. He has also supervised the development & execution of 1+GW of projects in renewables. Prior to Serentica, Akshay spearheaded the structured investment and project finance desk of Piramal Capital in infrastructure, having deployed and exited ~1 bn USD of exposure
C Chaudhary,
Chief Operating Officer
C Chaudhary is a multi-industry Renewable Energy leader with extensive experience spanning Solar, Wind, Storage and Green Hydrogen. He is currently the Chief Operation Officer of Serentica.
He brings over 18 Years of experience across the energy value chain in EPC and IIPs and his strengths include Project Development, Engineering, Procurement, contract, BD, project management, technology Innovation, SCM and operation and maintenance. He has developed executed, and managed assets of more than 4GW.
Prior to Serentica, Chaudhary was the COO at AMP Energy India.
He has also worked in leadership roles in various leading multinational company such as GE, SunEdison, Reliance Industry,- OstroEnery (part of Renew power) & Sembcorp.
He holds a B.Tech degree from IIT Roorkee and ME from IISc, Bangalore.
Nishit Mehta,
Chief - Energy Storage & Renewables Balancing
Nishit Mehta is a senior clean-tech professional with diverse experience spanning battery storage, solar, power electronics and smart grid analytics.
He is passionate about climate change and has worked in multiple roles as an entrepreneur, investor and strategist to aid the clean energy transition.
Previously in his career, Nishit helped set up Siemens’ solar inverter business in India. During his stint in the US, Nishit worked in Cleantech Venture Capital Investing before co-founding SiNode Systems (now NanoGraf Corp.), a battery company developing cutting-edge lithium-ion anode technology.
Nishit also worked with Exelon, a leading US generation, transmission & distribution company, where he kick-started multiple new businesses in the fields of electric vehicles, powering data-centres, flexible-renewable PPAs,
drones & predictive-analytics.
Nishit is a Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics) from the University of Pune and completed his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management.