Baroruchi Mishra, Group CEO of Nauvata Energy Transition (NET) Enterprise Pvt. Ltd, 0
In the current dynamic environment, the energy sector finds itself at a crucial juncture. As global demands increase and environmental issues become more pressing, the quest for sustainable energy solutions has reached an unprecedented level of urgency. The landscape is rife with both challenges and opportunities, ranging from reimagining energy access to adopting advanced technologies. In an exclusive interview with CEO Insights Asia, Baroruchi Mishra, Group CEO of Nauvata Energy Transition (NET) Enterprise Pvt. Ltd, provides his perspectives on leadership strategies that are needed to foster an innovative culture to support the energy transition while managing the associated risks.
What are the essential factors to consider when building an innovative team and addressing both successes and challenges?
In all these years, I have understood one thing – the days of the Eureka type discovery are over. Innovation must be built on the body of information that already exists in the organization or to which the organization has access. It is made possible by teams which value and uphold inclusiveness of ideas and opinions by enabling their free exchange. Working/playing in groups is the norm in most schools from nursery onwards; no reason why this cannot be replicated in our workplaces.
Forming cross-function teams is a must for breaking functional silos. We have learnt the hard way that functional silos are the bane of any organization - passing the buck becomes the norm in such a culture. Besides, it also encourages group think. Lateral team integration rather than a vertically integrated hierarchy is the key to success. It helps with out-of-box thinking and brings in new perspectives.
As a leader, I have always tried to co-visualize what success looks like for the team; it has helped breed ownership for the outcomes. Setting an overall direction, otherwise the teams move by drift. Team members do need to know what good looks like – they can then “see” the target and aim for it!
How do you manage risks in technology driven projects?
The technical risks need to be assessed without an optimism bias. We need to follow rigorous de-risking processes before a “Development Release” of a technology for commercialization. The challenge and support eco-system in the company that wants to commercialize new technology needs to be robust.
Some companies like Shell try to map all the risks on a project (except of course the “unknown unknowns”) with a structured TECOP framework – Technical, Environmental, Commercial, Organizational and Political. In many ways, the technical risks run through the all the rest. Hence the right choice of technology is important.
Sometimes the risks may not be in the technology itself, but in the elements needed to commercialize it at scale. So, all attempts to ramp up production on 2nd Generation Ethanol plants for IOCL(Panipat), HPCL (Bhatinda), and BPCL(Bargarh) have been stymied by logistics, quantity and quality of feedstock. Whether the assessment of the technology risk considered this in its entirety needs to be understood but it is definitely a pointer to the fact that scaling up risks must consider the context in which the plant would operate.
Also Read: 5 Pioneers of Japanese Automotive Industry You Should Know About
Barrier Thinking and Bow-Tie approach to managing risk is a proven way to assess and manage risks by putting into place preventative and control barriers, setting their performance standards and maintaining them so that they are available on demand.
Engineering and Design is a key aspect of how we commercialize new technologies. Initially, it might help to design smaller train sizes to minimize risks of scaled up operations. So instead of designing, let us say, a 1000 tonnes per day Biofuels plant, designing the plant with
250 x 4 tonnes per day trains would be more prudent to prove up the reactor design. Modularization has its own benefits even for subsequent designs. Folks often forget to account for the diseconomies of scale!
How do you foster innovation, and commitment to safety and sustainability within the team and the organization?
Energy Transition needs innovation with capital “I”. The high costs need to be reduced. If the culture in the organization enables innovation, it is not difficult to reduce the costs - by an order of magnitude from the FOAK (first of a kind) to NOAK (nth of a kind). It will need setting a North Star target, creating an opportunity register to get to that target and de-risking that opportunity register objectively – without allowing a “yes -but” approach.
We also need to allow the teams to experiment with bounded risks but not get stuck with an idea or a concept if it is not working. Teams must learn to “fail-fast” – kill an idea and move on to the next if it is not working. Fleet of foot in decision making helps with rapid innovation.
Regarding the commitment to safety, it needs to be understood that the threshold for perceiving risk is very high in India. Not before one is just two inches away from being run over by a speeding car that he/she understands the risk of jaywalking.
How can leaders and businesses mobilize the necessary capital investment to scale up clean energy infrastructure and deployment?
This is not an easy job. Great ideas or great project proposals end up in the waste bin because companies cannot achieve financial close on the project. We are currently working on raising capital for a biofuels project with an industry-first technology and I can tell you it is quite challenging in the Indian context. However, there are some guardrails that certainly help:
Be clear about whom we are seeking funds from: We need to be clear about our target group of investors - financial or strategic investors. Our pitch deck for raising funds should reflect this aspect.
Financial investors would like to multiply their investment 5X to 10X in a 5–7-year horizon typically and cash out. There is always pressure from them on the operating company to ensure that there is no downside to their investment; sometimes it may detract from what is good for the plant operations.
Strategic investors are the ones who would really like to stay invested in the technology / plant and make it realize its full potential. They are in it for the merit of the technology and the product slate which helps them reduce their carbon footprints or generate carbon credits. This helps uplift their brand image besides the profits from product sales and future expansions.
Also Read: A Study of Singapore's Leadership Strategy in Tourism in 2025
What would be your advice to future leaders in this industry?
I believe approaching energy transition with trust and belief that it is needed to save the planet for us and our future generations, is the key to success for any leader in ET space. This will add passion to effort.
Bridging the skills gap between what we have and what is needed to make things happen will be necessary. This applies to the leaders and to the team at large. Competency with the right attitude is rare but that should be the ambition when hiring skill sets.Leaders will need to execute with rigor. We have generally a poor record of project delivery in our country; this is the main stumbling block to fulfilling any ambition towards energy transition, especially with the use of new technology. In the context in which we operate in India, it is not easy, but we need to learn and not allow the hunger to deliver on projects to be extinguished.
Finally, the future (and the present) is profoundly digital. Tick-in-the-box approach to embedding Digital and Al by the leadership in the organization will lead to a false sense of security. A credible Digital Roadmap is key to success for any organization. The roadmap needs to have a robust resource-loaded delivery schedule; otherwise, it would be a waste of time.
Let me end by saying that the best way to start your AI journey is by creating your own digital twin!
How do you foster innovation, and commitment to safety and sustainability within the team and the organization?
Energy Transition needs innovation with capital “I”. The high costs need to be reduced. If the culture in the organization enables innovation, it is not difficult to reduce the costs - by an order of magnitude from the FOAK (first of a kind) to NOAK (nth of a kind). It will need setting a North Star target, creating an opportunity register to get to that target and de-risking that opportunity register objectively – without allowing a “yes -but” approach.
We also need to allow the teams to experiment with bounded risks but not get stuck with an idea or a concept if it is not working. Teams must learn to “fail-fast” – kill an idea and move on to the next if it is not working. Fleet of foot in decision making helps with rapid innovation.
Regarding the commitment to safety, it needs to be understood that the threshold for perceiving risk is very high in India. Not before one is just two inches away from being run over by a speeding car that he/she understands the risk of jaywalking.
How can leaders and businesses mobilize the necessary capital investment to scale up clean energy infrastructure and deployment?
This is not an easy job. Great ideas or great project proposals end up in the waste bin because companies cannot achieve financial close on the project. We are currently working on raising capital for a biofuels project with an industry-first technology and I can tell you it is quite challenging in the Indian context. However, there are some guardrails that certainly help:
Be clear about whom we are seeking funds from: We need to be clear about our target group of investors - financial or strategic investors. Our pitch deck for raising funds should reflect this aspect.
Financial investors would like to multiply their investment 5X to 10X in a 5–7-year horizon typically and cash out. There is always pressure from them on the operating company to ensure that there is no downside to their investment; sometimes it may detract from what is good for the plant operations.
A credible Digital Roadmap is key to success for any organization
Strategic investors are the ones who would really like to stay invested in the technology / plant and make it realize its full potential. They are in it for the merit of the technology and the product slate which helps them reduce their carbon footprints or generate carbon credits. This helps uplift their brand image besides the profits from product sales and future expansions.
Also Read: A Study of Singapore's Leadership Strategy in Tourism in 2025
What would be your advice to future leaders in this industry?
I believe approaching energy transition with trust and belief that it is needed to save the planet for us and our future generations, is the key to success for any leader in ET space. This will add passion to effort.
Bridging the skills gap between what we have and what is needed to make things happen will be necessary. This applies to the leaders and to the team at large. Competency with the right attitude is rare but that should be the ambition when hiring skill sets.Leaders will need to execute with rigor. We have generally a poor record of project delivery in our country; this is the main stumbling block to fulfilling any ambition towards energy transition, especially with the use of new technology. In the context in which we operate in India, it is not easy, but we need to learn and not allow the hunger to deliver on projects to be extinguished.
Finally, the future (and the present) is profoundly digital. Tick-in-the-box approach to embedding Digital and Al by the leadership in the organization will lead to a false sense of security. A credible Digital Roadmap is key to success for any organization. The roadmap needs to have a robust resource-loaded delivery schedule; otherwise, it would be a waste of time.
Let me end by saying that the best way to start your AI journey is by creating your own digital twin!