Home: Boston in the summer, otherwise Texas. Age: Early thirties. Profession: Clean energy infrastructure development and deployment. Alma mater: MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MBA). Languages spoken: English, Urdu, Hindi, Gujjarati, Spanish.
Current project: Aiming to rapidly build clean-energy businesses before my forties. Latest accomplishment: Led a deal to acquire three large grid-scale battery storage projects in Texas. In addition, the past two years have seen nearly 1 GW of renewable energy projects that I’ve worked on (wind, solar and batteries) come into operation. Hobbies: Golf (although poorly), hiking, biking and the outdoors. Recent travel or adventure: Family trip to all of Colombia, from coffee farms to the mountains and beaches. Last book read: Buy Back Your Time, by Dan Martell; Zero to One, by Peter Thiel.
What one word would your closest friend use to describe you? Tenacious. How do you define an ideal business relationship? Equally invested, fully bought-in, transparent with one another. Accountability to one another for the venture’s success. What is your greatest joy? Spending time with my family and watching my son grow, a true blessing. What is your guilty pleasure? Ice cream, in particular, salted caramel cookies and cream from JP Licks in Boston. How do you relieve stress? Exercise, usually lifting weights or going for a long jog. What ingredient is essential to your perfect vacation? Either downtime on the beach (with a book), or a few nice mountain or trail hikes.
What was your favorite college course? A financial derivatives, options, futures, swaps and securities trading course at MIT. What’s prominently featured on your home or office wall? The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David. What is your go-to source of creative inspiration? A cup of coffee at a nearby coffee shop and my notepad scribbling my ideas onto paper when I need to think things through. What personal circumstance has had the greatest influence on your life? Being a father has really shifted my outlook on the world, and my role in it. I have been thinking of the future and what the world will look like while I’m not here and what my son will inherit, which well informs my fight against climate change and the growth of clean energy, a sustainable climate and global sustainability initiatives.
What is your big idea?
A continued proliferation of First-of-a-kind (FOAK) climate technologies being brought to the market by savvy renewable project developers.
What change are you working on to effect in your profession or field? Raising more capital and institutional resources to proliferate clean-technology and clean infrastructure deployment. What message do you want to send out into the world? Clean energy is profitable, and we need to change the current ways of thinking around capital deployment away from traditional fossil generation. Renewables are not expensive, and emerging climate-technologies can be deployed profitably.
As a kid, what did you first want to be when you grew up? A New York Met. After your loved ones, what object would you first save from your burning home? As many of my books as possible. How would you choose to spend tomorrow, if you knew it was your last day on earth? With my wife, son and immediate family, enjoying perfect Pakistani and Indian food, and ice cream. What advice would you give your younger self? Stay resilient. Stay persistent. Stay tenacious and never give up. The extra effort will always get you where you need to go. What period in your life would you do differently, if you could? Post college years. I would have started a business.
Personal motto: “Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Favorite quote: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours” (Henry David Thoreau, Walden).
