Akanksha Sharma is an internationally acclaimed International Development & Public Policy Specialist on a mission to empower people. She is a ‘Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum’, Writer and TEDx Speaker.

She is a notable voice in the socio-economic development space and is noted amongst '100 Most Impactful CSR Leaders Globally' by World CSR Congress; 'Asia’s Top Sustainability Superwomen List of Honour' by CSRWorks International; ‘Young CSR Leader’ by India CSR and is also conferred with the “Sustainability Leadership Award” by World Sustainability Forum.

Sharma has more than a decade of experience in leadership roles at both large corporations and UN agencies, where she led change for development through strategic decision-making and policy discourse on CSR, sustainability, business responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and impact investments. She currently leads CSR and Sustainability for Sterlite Technologies and has worked with UNICEF and other large MNCs in the past. Her role with the corporates is to advise Boards on Responsible Business and Impact Investments through Sustainability & CSR along with developing organizational approaches to establish strategic partnerships for development ranging across public, private and civil society.

She has mentored non-profits and has served on several boards and policy committees.

Sharma has worked extensively on international development issues such as poverty alleviation, health, education, environment, climate change, gender issues, post conflict development, governance and more in diverse regions of the world.

After completing her Master’s in Business Administration, Sharma has done her specialization from Harvard Business School in CSR.

She is a member of notable national/ international CSR and Sustainability Policy Making Forums of the UN, CII and others. She has been advocating for integrating CSR with SDGs with the UN and the Government.

Sharma is widely recognized for writing a Peace Series between India and Pakistan that was published in the Dawn, Pakistan. Later, she became a “Peace Ambassador” of an international organization, Postcards for Peace, a UK based organization for her contribution on issues related to peace and conflict. Besides, she is a regular writer for Forbes, Times of India, Economic Times, Huffington Post and Dailyo (India Today) amongst many others.

She is a “Global Climate Force Ambassador” and was chosen to represent India on “International Expedition on Climate Change at Antarctica” in 2017.

She has been a notable speaker at various forums on issues related to Public Policy, Business and Government.

In the following conversation with Deepak Nanda from CSRBOX, she talks about the following:

1. Considering you have been a part of multiple projects around sustainability and climate change, what would you say has been your motivation to work around the same?

2. How do you approach the idea of sustainability at Sterlite technologies?

3. Was it a natural fit for the brand or did you have to extensively pivot to embed the same, since for a lot of brands the idea of sustainability is not so acceptable due to the cost factor that comes in play?

4. What are some of the flagship interventions that you have launched to align the brand with more sustainable actions?

5. You focus on sustaining the triple bottom line impact through "green-clean-lean" technologies for the geographies that you operate in. Can you elaborate on how you do it?

6. Lastly, what does the future of sustainability led initiatives look like for Sterlite and what will be your suggestions to organizations wanting to become more sustainable in their working?

Impact-Talk is a series of views and interviews of CSR heads, impact leaders and change-makers, addressing development challenges in India. If you have an impact-maker in your network, please suggest/share details at shilpi@csrbox.org