Dr. Ishwar Hegde is the Co-founder and Managing Director of the company, where he leads the growth strategy and develops large renewable energy assets for independent power producers (IPPs), corporations, and utilities. He is driving the company’s mission to become one of India’s largest pure-play renewable energy developers. With over 25 years of experience across various industries, Dr. Hegde is a thought leader in renewable energy and possesses expertise in corporate strategy, business intelligence and analytics, market research, global marketing, and business development. Throughout his career, he has partnered with CEOs and executive leadership teams to identify profitable growth opportunities and foster performance-oriented organizations.
Before co-founding Sunfan, Dr. Hegde led global marketing and strategy at Suzlon Group, which was then the world’s fifth-largest wind turbine manufacturer, boasting over 15,000 MW of installed capacity across 20 countries. Additionally, he served as Chief Economist for the $39 billion Essar Group for over five years, developing and implementing growth strategies for the steel, power, and oil sectors.
Dr. Ishwar Hegde is a gold medalist with a Ph.D. in Economics. He taught and conducted at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) in New Delhi. He has consulted for organizations like the World Bank and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Dr. Hegde is involved with several national and international organizations, including the World Economic Forum, IEA, IPCC, GWEC, CII, FICCI, and the Government of India.
He has also founded Aitahub to create a machine learning-enabled job readiness engine, helping aspiring individuals from lower-tier cities and towns with diverse educational backgrounds to pursue AI careers.
Dr. Ishwar is committed to achieving a sustainable future and net-zero goals by investing in renewable energy technologies, building a project ecosystem, and partnering globally.