Chandrashekar Hariharan

Chairman, BCIL

Chandrashekar Hariharan is an economist who has presided over projects on water, energy, and green buildings since 1989. He is a Chartered Accountant who worked as a journalist before specialising in econometrics and development economics.

In an attempt to bring accountability to his work on sustainable directions, he morphed from an NGO activist in 1991 into an entrepreneur in 1995. His writings of the early 90s of what our cities and buildings should be are startling for their foresight. This was way before words like 'global warming' and 'climate change' gained currency.

In an attempt to bring accountability to his work on sustainable directions, he morphed from an NGO activist in 1991 into an entrepreneur in 1995. His writings of the early 90s of what our cities and buildings should be are startling for their foresight. This was way before words like 'global warming' and 'climate change' gained currency.

Kanchana Ganesan

Chief - Zed Design

Kanchana Ganesan heads the design endeavours at BCIL and delivers creative solutions that offer due diligence to the Company's mission of Mainstreaming Sustainability and vision of creating carbon-neutral buildings. Previously, Kanchana has worked in Dimella Shaffer Architects, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; SEEDS (Sustainable Ecological Environmental Development Society), New Delhi; Jaisim-Fountainhead, Bangalore; and Sikka Associates, New Delhi.

Kanchana finds BCIL's projects aspiring towards addressing the disconnect between nature and humans, where the envelope of sustainability is stretched beyond just creating green-certified buildings. "These are endeavours which provoke people to 'think' sustainability, 'live' sustainability, not just 'own' sustainability as an artifice in the form of a building. To me, that is sustainability in the truest sense and gets me all charged up each day I go to work," she says.

She loves to travel and gather vibrant imagery and stories that get captured as images through photographs or writings. She loves to write prose and poetry, too. Music and books keep her company – whenever, wherever.

B S Harikrishna

Chief - Zed Construction Management

B S Harikrishna heads Construction Management at BCIL Zed Habitats. Stints at R&R Fabricators, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd at Kaiga Power Plant in Uttara Kannada District and in Bangalore, and Quadrile Management Services Pvt Ltd have contributed a lot to what Harikrishna brings to work today. At BCIL, he handed over the world's first Platinum-rated T-Zed Homes. At ZedEarth and ZedWoods, he is at the forefront of new challenges to further sustainable building methods.

Harikrishna says it is at BCIL that he felt more responsible towards Mother Earth by learning more about sustainable building techniques and implementing them in day-to-day life. "I enjoy my job immensely because I am always doing something that's close to my heart." He loves to work across various sectors in the construction industry and live close to nature. "After working with BCIL, I have become more passionate about conserving nature which is forever under threat."

Vinay T C

Chief - Zed Value Engineering

Vinay T C is tasked with translating BCIL's mission into practicality at ground level. And Vinay does it with a smile on his face. Previously, Vinay has worked with Divyasree Developers, SEZ Project, Bangalore, Grasim Industries Limited, and KAP India Pvt Ltd. At BCIL, he is currently busy with Value Engineering, Services, and Carbon Mapping – VESC.

Among his best achievements are single-home one-KLD sewage treatment plant at an affordable cost [it is the world's first as a product], carbon emission reduction by using local materials and value engineering in works BCIL has executed so far. He has been working on new technologies to ease building process by reducing 'wet work' (with messy concrete, cement and mortar) on site and designing services efficiently to reduce maintenance costs.

And, what brought him to BCIL? What eggs him on to do more? Pat comes the reply: "World's first Platinum-rated green building, T-Zed." He was a State player of football and loves to wear the "Innovation" hat all the time, and 'team' is his mantra.

Dr Harish Narayan

Chief - ZED Social Engineering

Dr Harish Narayan left the art of dentistry far behind to scale new greener heights at BCIL. He has previously worked with HOVS – Bay Area Credit Services, and UK-based Ventura India. At BCIL, he is busy establishing first point of contact with clients with respect to maintenance, events, and support functions. Dr Harish is simply the best at wearing different hats. He has trained 600 families at ZedCollective and ZedEarth in urban farming, set the media abuzz with "Bring back the sparrow" campaign, synergised green initiatives with GKVK [the agri university], and brought in many corporates to volunteer. Through Million Seedballs, he has brought together many schools and colleges, organised Zed Miles, a Flower Show at Lalbagh in Bangalore, and is the brain behind many events at BCIL and beyond. "Sustainability is a challenge. We must educate society through such initiatives," he says.

Even as he marches ahead with these causes, Dr Harish finds BCIL's love for everything green and Dr Hariharan's leadership inspiring. He loves music, flying, and trekking.

Deepalatha A

Chief - Zed Client Relations

Deepalatha leads from the front when it comes to getting the discerning of Zed home buyers know about what they are buying into. Her sales insights go back many years. She has helped many buyers and investors make the right decision across a spectrum of properties in Bangalore. Forever on her toes to ensure that a customer's need is met, she generates and keeps an eye on potential leads – both domestic and international – to convert them into sales.
Earlier, she worked with Propmart Technologies Limited, a sister concern of Puravankara Group for 10 years. She handled broking, retail marketing, commercial, team management and project marketing.

Deepa got inspired by the eco-friendly ethos of BCIL and finds it gratifying to discuss the same with customers. "It's not just a job. It's about working for a cause. And that's what makes my responsibilities at BCIL that much more interesting and worth all my efforts."

Sanjay Ramanujam

Group Financial Advisor

Sanjay groomed as a chartered accountant with his articleship served at Ernst & Young. He later spent 6 years with the Big 4 Auditing Firm as part of their corporate finance advisory practice in India and the Middle East.
Over a decade and more, he has managed several transaction advisory and financial structuring mandates for leading domestic and MNCs and Government organisations in India, Middle East, North Africa and Europe. He later joined a mid-sized real estate development and investment company in Bahrain as the Group Financial Officer and was a key player in raising USD 900 million in the form of debt and structured funding.
On his return to India, he joined Tishman Speyer India as Director-Project Finance and moved up to be Senior Director-Finance. In his four-year stint here, he worked on several debt funding mandates and was also involved in negotiating several large commercial agreements.

At BCIL, Sanjay plays the role of CFO and helps structure its business contours and will work on Strategic Business Plans for the Zed Group.

Shankar Jagannathan

Shankar Jagannathan has been an independent consultant. He is author of an amazing book, Corporate Disclosures 1553-2007, that traces balance sheets and financial statements presented by companies over 500 years across the world. He is working currently on another book on the history of economics of the world over 10,000 years!

Also on the Board of Oxfam India, Shankar manages to find time to head Academics & Pedagogy and Technology Initiatives at the Azim Premji Foundation in Bangalore. He was associated with Wipro for twenty years and served as Corporate Treasurer both at Wipro Corporate and at Wipro Ltd. These days he teaches and writes on corporate finance, governance and sustainable development. He likes to research, write and teach in the areas of finance. He has the unusual habit of collecting financial fiction. Any suggestions about interesting financial fiction that you come across, please do share it with him! He is warm, amiable, analytical, hungry to meet young minds, has a zest for life that takes him on long walks—up to 20 km!—every week.

Ashwin Mahesh

Ashwin Mahesh is a doctoral in atmospheric remote sensing from the University of Washington. His research interests include application of technology in urban public administration, capacity building in government departments, and process re-engineering and reforms of administrative departments. His expertise lies in exploring the expanding role of technology & IT, and its creative use in urban traffic management in the future. He is the co-founder and director of the popular public affairs magazine, India Together and CEO of the Bangalore-based social technology company, Mapunity incubated at IIM, Bangalore and at IIIT, Bangalore. He is an Ashoka Fellow, a distinguished global fellowship that recognizes leading social entrepreneurs.

He dons many roles in the routine course of his work: member of Bangalore's ABIDe, researcher at IIM and at IIIT, Urban Research Strategist for the GoK. He's also on the board of the Centre for Sustainable Development, and an advisor to Babajob. He's a member of the State Police IT Steering Committee and a Special Advisor to BMTC too.