Shankar Venkateswaran is a part of the founding team of ECube Investment Advisors that is setting up a fund to invest in publicly listed companies and help them improve their sustainability/ESG performance. He also advises companies and NGOs on matters relating to corporate sustainability and sustainable development. His last full-time position was as the chief of Tata Sustainability Group (TSG) which was tasked with providing guidance, thought leadership and support on sustainability and corporate responsibility matters of the $ 100 billion Tata group of companies.
For over a decade, Shankar’s work has focused on corporate sustainability. He set up and led TSG in bringing emerging sustainability ideas (such as natural and social capital valuation, circularity and sustainable supply chains) to the Tata group, assisting group companies integrate sustainability into core business and helped curate and execute the group’s disaster response, volunteering and skilling initiatives. He joined the Tata group after working with the UK-based think-tank and consultants, SustainAbility, and the global firm of management consultants, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he advised several companies on sustainability strategy and reporting.
Prior to this, he spent around 15 years in social development with the international NGO, ActionAid and the American India Foundation (which he helped establish in India and served as its first Executive Director – India). While at ActionAid, he also set up Partners in Change, a non-profit that pioneered corporate sustainability and CSR advisory services in India.
Shankar spent the initial 12 years of his career in the consulting firm, A F Ferguson & Co. (now Deloitte) where he worked with companies and governments on a wide range of management issues. He has held board positions with several non-profits in India and overseas. He was a part of a two-member panel that drafted the National Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct, released by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in March 2019. He is also a member of a committee that is developing the Business Responsibility Report aligned with these guidelines.
Shankar is an engineer and an MBA, and is committed to working with young people to increase their understanding and practice of the role of business in society. He is an amateur stage actor, an enthusiastic weekend tennis player and dabbles in writing.