Sumant Sinha: Green tech to triumph over drilling

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0:30And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.

0:51Hello, I'm BBC presenter Liana Byrne, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. I want to get freedom. I like that freedom. A gender equal world would be a better world for men too. We need this is fire. We need healing. We need trust. These companies don't really, they don't care what governments do. This is a war. The first thing that we want is the war to end. For this interview, I met Samant Sinha, the founder of Renew, one of India's largest renewable energy companies. Sinha began his career in finance working in New York and London, before walking away from the corporate world in his 40s to make a bet on renewable energy.

1:41In 2011, he founded Renew with the ambition of helping transform India's energy system. Today, it's one of the country's largest renewable energy companies, generating 1.8 % of India's electricity and playing a major role in one of the world's biggest clean energy transitions. India is one of the world's most polluted countries with toxic air being a recurring problem in Delhi and its neighbouring regions in northern India, especially during winters. You're going to hear about why he decided to bet on the green industry and what he makes of countries pulling back on their climate commitments. It worries me because ultimately I do believe that climate change is one of the most central issues facing humanity.

2:26If we don't act with the absolute highest sense of urgency on it, then it's going to lead to two degrees plus temperature change, which is going to be really, really damaging. But eventually I feel that technology, which is driving climate change efforts, will triumph over drilling things out of the ground.

2:48Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Samant Sinha. In my family, I was the first person to do an MBA or even consider, therefore, a job not in the government. And so when I started off thinking about doing something on my own in entrepreneurial, then it was something which was quite new, quite novel in my family. Nobody would have been surprised if I had chosen a career in the civil service or if I had decided to become a politician. In my father's footsteps, that would have been entirely natural. but I wanted to really follow my own path. And becoming an entrepreneur, I felt, was something that could take me in that direction.

3:25Was there anybody who taught you about money as a child and making money and that kind of entrepreneurial spirit? Yeah, not really. Now that you ask me that question, not really. I think I learned it along the way as I went. And of course, in my corporate career and in my investment banking career, I came across a lot of people running corporations doing it successfully. And that really taught me what it took to create value, why people invested in companies, why investors invested in companies, what it took to create value in them, and how to do that. So getting that exposure during my corporate life was actually very useful because it taught me how companies actually get into business areas, how they run businesses, and how value is truly created.

4:12Now, your dad, he became a finance minister. Did that teach you a lot about leadership? You know, in some ways it did, but in some ways also not, because in my family, you know, everybody pursues their own path. And most of the time that my father was the finance minister, I was actually not in India. I was actually outside of India at the time. And so I didn't really overlap and see his political career that closely, frankly, because I was not in India most of the time. It's interesting, sometimes people rebel against what their parents are doing, because you see what perhaps politics or being a writer is doing.

4:49And you say, actually, I don't really want to go down that path. Maybe that made you more or less interested in government. In some ways, yes. But in some ways, it was also very attractive, because obviously, I'd seen my father's very successful political career. And secondly, obviously, he had a lot of connects and so on. So it might have been easy for me to or easier for me to get into politics. But, you know, eventually I thought it's somebody else's path and I wanted to follow my own path and create my own journey. And that to me really was the most exciting thing I could do with my life. Tell me about when you enrolled in university.

5:24It's quite an interesting story there that you were about to go somewhere and then ended up going somewhere else. And actually that was quite luck and timing came into it as one of the luckiest accidents of your life. Yeah, you know, all of these things sometimes play out. And I said, independently, I was supposed to, you know, go and study economics in one of the top universities in India. But I'd also got admission to one of the IITs or the Indian Institute for Technology, which are very hard to get into. There's a very comparative entrance examination. I had got admission, therefore, through that exam into one of the IITs as well.

5:59And I was frankly confused about which direction to go. And as luck would have it, that year, the IIT session started earlier. So I ended up going there and then I liked it and I just ended up staying on. And that's what made me an engineer. You know, it taught me a lot of things, actually, going to IIT and spending four years with really, frankly, some of the smartest people that one can come across in the world. And you also studied management at IIM Calcutta and public policy at Columbia. What do you think shaped your thinking the most in terms of what you do now? or was it really a combination of all those three?

6:34I would say in terms of my approach to life, in terms of the way I think, probably IIT Delhi is what shaped me the most. And then after that, I think it was a series of top-on experiences, which I think all contributed in some way. But you know, life is long, life is winding and you never know what contributes how to your journey. And so it was really a combination of all the educational experiences, my work experiences that finally got me to become an entrepreneur in India. Now, before that, of course, you mentioned earlier that you went into finance. So why finance? What was the jump off point for you there?

7:08You know, frankly speaking, when I was in the US, you know, I'd finished my master's at Columbia. I didn't really know anybody in the US. I had no networks, no contacts. I was frankly just applying everywhere I could possibly apply. You know, I needed a job and so I applied everywhere. And as luck would have it, I got a job in Citibank. And that too at the very last minute. So it was a little bit of chance, I would say, that I ended up getting into finance. But a very fortunate opportunity from my standpoint. And what was that like as a first job? I'm sure that's quite tough. Banks like those are known to be hardworking.

7:46It was very difficult, actually, Liana. And the reason is that I had never really been exposed to the world of finance. I didn't know a lot about how tough and competitive and cutthroat investment banking could be and would be. I just knew that I was willing to work very hard and put in the hours that were required. It's interesting because a lot of people start out on their careers in finance. And when you say cutthroat, what do you mean and what kind of hours were you doing? You know, the whole thing in investment banking was how many hours a week did you work? You know, did you work 100 hours a week or not on a regular basis?

8:21So, you know, typically working 14, 15 hour days, working seven days a week was not very unusual. And if you were not willing to put in that effort and time, then you probably wouldn't be around for too long. At the same time, it was a very up and up or out kind of an organization in terms of investment banking in general. So either you performed and you delivered or you were asked to leave. Did you ever think that you would stay at Citibank or on Wall Street? Because I know it's a tough job, but it's also a good job, isn't it? It is. But, you know, I've been doing it for about 10, 11 years. And I realized that that wasn't something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

9:01Investment banking at some level rewards a specialization. And I wanted my career to be much broader than that. And really to get exposure into a wider variety of areas. and so I felt that I needed to do something different and that's really when the opportunity of going back to India in a much more broader and different kind of role popped up and I said you know this is something that I have to pursue. Well tell me about that what was the the role that popped up for you? You know during one of my trips to India I had met the chairman of one of India's largest business conglomerates. He wanted to hire somebody from outside India for the finance role.

9:41And that's when I met him. And he offered me the job of coming in as his finance head for the organization for the conglomerate. And it was a very interesting opportunity to come into corporate India at a very, very senior level, and really go from investment banking to a corporate career and a corporate life. And that was an opportunity that I just couldn't pass upon. Plus, it also aligned with my desire to go back to India at some point. And so, you know, because of all of those reasons, I said, this is an opportunity I can't pass upon and I must take it. But at the same time, moving from a very settled life in the US was not straightforward.

10:21But, you know, my wife and I put the bullet and we decided to go back to India. What was different between that job and the one that you'd left in New York? Well, they were vastly different. First of all, one was investment banking, which, as I said, was really about giving advice to people. The other one was actually about making decisions actively about where to invest capital of your own and then living with the consequences of those investments. As an investment banker, you really worked with corporates at a very senior level, really with the CEO or the CFO. And, you know, you just sort of worked at a relatively superficial level with them.

10:59Here, you were really deeply embedded into an organization and you had to work with, you know, all many different levels of the firm. Thirdly, you know, a job in investment banking, at least my job had been very global. The Indian job was very much rooted in the Indian context, although it cut across different sectors. And I would say lastly, working in India in that particular role, I got an exposure to a whole bunch of different sectors because our group had invested across many different areas. It sounds like you really enjoyed the job. So tell me when you decided to set up your own business?

11:33Because again, you could have stayed in that job and maybe been perfectly happy. That is true. And one must ask why I decided to, you know, take all the decisions I did. But I guess at some level, as I said, there was a level of discontent in that eventually my goal was to start something on my own. And the more I worked with other people, the more I realized that the things that I did not have that would allow me to become an entrepreneur was capital of my own. I didn't have the understanding of a specific sector where I could actually find a business opportunity. And the third thing was I did not inherently have the risk-taking capability because I still needed to work and make sure that my family was taken care of.

12:16I got the chance to work in a company which was in the renewable energy space. And that really opened my eyes to this whole area of climate change. And this is, I'm talking about 17, 18 years ago. And it seemed to me, as I said, even then, that climate change would become a very significant issue for humanity and an area that we would have to get into in a much bigger way and deal with. And so from a purely business standpoint, I felt it was a sector that was still in its early days and therefore would offer me opportunities from an entrepreneurship lens. And so I then really pushed myself into doing that.

12:54I said, look, here's an opportunity. I just now have to jump off the plane and, you know, find my way through. And so that's what I did. I essentially left my job and I started this company Renewal.

13:10You're listening to The Interview from the BBC World Service.

13:21Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian, and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott.

13:54So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.

14:05Saman Sinha is a seasoned interviewee. He's accustomed to discussing energy policy, investment and India's green ambitions. But what struck me was how much more reflective he became when we moved away from targets and technology. And we really talked about the choices behind his career, about the influence of his family, the risks he took, and the difficult personal decisions involved in building a company. Okay, let's return to my conversation with Samhan Sinha. What did Renew actually look like at the start? Where do you even start with Renewable Energy Company? Because one, as you said, there is so much capital involved.

14:44And also, yeah, it's quite a complex business, isn't it? It is. And you know, to tell you an interesting story, when I started looking to raise capital, I had hired about six or seven people. I built a small pipeline of 100 odd megawatts of projects. And I needed to raise to fund those projects about$60 million. Now, when I went to the venture capitalists to look for capital, because, you know, we were a pre-revenue company at that time. They said, look, this is too much capital for us. We're not used to deploying such large amounts of capital. So you really have to go to the private equity guys.

15:19When I went to the private equity guys, they told me that the company was too early stage and therefore they couldn't, you know, they wasn't interested from their standpoint. So it took a lot of pounding the payment before we found an investor who was willing to come in. Then we really got started. And, you know, the whole shape of the company then began to change quite substantially. This is a family business, isn't it? Your wife, Fashali, also co-founded Renew with you and remains part of the company today. So how does that work? How do you handle disagreements together if you're both at the head of the company?

15:53Yeah, you know, actually, I wouldn't say we're a family-run business. I would say that we're a professionally-run business. It just so happens that both I and my wife work in it. I, of course, founded the company and I am the CEO of the company. Veshali runs some aspects of our business. But I think it's very clear to our investors and to everybody within the company as to what the management and governance of the company is. And we try to keep it as professionally run and managed as we can. And Mishali has certain areas of responsibility within the company. And she runs those relatively independently.

16:30And because she's my wife, she reports directly to the board. We have an independent board. What are the advantages and perhaps disadvantages of building a company with your spouse? There are many advantages in that as an entrepreneur who started the company, it's very important for me to find people who are equally committed to the company as I am and who have the same sense of ownership and drive towards the company. But who better to have that than your wife, who is equally committed and as committed as you are to making sure that the business is successful. So she brings in a lot of those elements into the company as well.

17:06And, you know, therefore, anything that is happening in the company where she feels that things are, you know, going off track, especially in organisational build kind of issues I think she has a point of view and getting that input from her can be quite useful. Now we'll go back you raised all this capital now let's talk about growth of the company how did you grow it and what scale are you at now? Yeah so we've had a pretty good run over the last 15 years we are now at a point where we are India's second largest renewable energy company in terms of asset ownership we own about 15 gigawatts of wind and solar assets that we've built ourselves over the years.

17:48We have a fully integrated execution model. So we do everything from project development to execution of the projects to running them and, of course, owning them as well. Over the last four years, we've also gone into manufacturing of solar panels and solar cells. So we have two very large factories now that do that. We are further backward integrating into making wafers and ingots, which go into sales, which then go into making the solar modules. So we're becoming a pretty large solar manufacturing company as well. We employ about 5 ,000 people in the company now, and that number will increase as our manufacturing business goes up.

18:27We manage over 200 sites all across India. You know, we see our role not just as a company that has to create value for its shareholders, which of course we have to because without that, we won't have access to more capital. But we also see our role really as a company that is not just playing a commercial role, but is also playing a pioneering role in helping develop India's clean energy sector. Just looking back at the 15 years of you building the company, was there a tough decision that you had to make as a founder that really stands out to you? Was there a deal that you wish you had said yes or no to?

19:01I think one of the things that we perhaps should not have done was to list outside India. But at the time we took the decision, that was the right decision. But things are subsequently turned out in the manner that, you know, that decision seems in hindsight to have not been the correct one. But, you know, it is what it is now. But having said that, the hardest decisions really are people decisions because, you know, some people join you very early in the process. They show faith and commitment in you. And then over a period of time, not everybody is able to evolve into the roles that you would want them to.

19:33And because you have deep, you know, long term relationships with them, it becomes hard to take those decisions then. Yeah. People management can be extremely tough. But yeah, I mean, you spent years in finance before betting your own money on renewable energy. It's interesting. What did you see in 2011 that convinced you that the future was going to look fundamentally different from the present? You know, at the time that you start, it's very hard to really forecast where you're going to get to. So in the beginning, it was really all about trying to get the first few projects done, trying to demonstrate that we could execute on the ground, that we could hire people, that we could manage them, that we could create a company, etc.

20:14And so in the beginning, it was really not about creating a very large organization and trying to change India's electricity landscape. It was much more about survival and doing the first few projects properly. So that is really how we started off. And in the beginning, our ambitions were quite modest. You know, it's only over the years that those ambitions began to change. Where do you think India is at in terms of renewable energy today? Because to give a wider context, we have a lot of conversations about India taking oil from Russia. Narendra Modi has argued that, well, it is still a developing country, so we need cheap oil wherever it can come from.

20:50So do you think that India can become a renewable powerhouse? Look, I think India has done a terrific job on the clean energy transition. And it's for a variety of reasons. Of course, climate change is how it all started. That is what drove the initial rollout in clean energy. But now, especially with what's happening globally, with all the wars going on and the geopolitical situation being what it is, India recognizes that we import all of our fossil fuels, or at least 85 % of it, and that's a dependency that is very unhealthy for us. And so therefore, energy security is something that we have to work on with a high degree of urgency.

21:28And the solution for that is to move as quickly as possible into clean energy, whether it is using renewable energy to generate electricity, whether it is to use renewable energy to power things like data centers or create green fuels like green hydrogen and green ammonia. All of those are areas that now the government is very strongly now pushing forward. It does seem as though the conversation has shifted because we were talking a lot about green energy over the last couple of years. But then obviously, the U.S. President Donald Trump, the U.S. is the biggest global economy in the world. He's saying things like, drill, baby, drill.

22:06They've pulled back on their climate commitments. So have other countries around the world. So does that worry you? No, of course it does. It worries me because ultimately, I do believe that climate change is one of the most central issues facing humanity. If we don't act with the absolute highest sense of urgency on it, then it's going to lead to two degrees plus temperature change, which is going to be really, really damaging to the world as a whole. It will lead to all sorts of consequences on food security, migration, droughts, etc. So the consequences are going to be quite dire. But eventually, I feel that technology, which is driving climate change efforts, will triumph over drilling things out of the ground.

22:47So I think longer term, it's going to eventually be a situation where the energy transition wins out. And what do you think about clean energy and how it could help equality, essentially? The divide between rich and poor is quite stark in India. Do you think that that's going to help with that? I think that clean energy, ultimately, it's a little bit more democratic than large single location power generating stations. Because clean energy can be put up on one's roof through government subsidies. it can become very cheap. So all of that is going to bring renewable energy much closer to the common man.