Founder & Managing Partner

Mathias, a Danish national, has worked across the investment ecosystem in India while collaborating closely with Scandinavian ESG pioneers. Today, he supports Pontoka’s clients and advises investment companies (LP’s and GP’s) on ESG-related efforts.

Prior to founding Pontoka, he advised the management at Maersk Group on their South Asian M&A strategy, as well as one of India’s leading Fintech companies, Jocata (owned by BillDesk), on their European expansion.

Previously, he led Investor Relations and Business Development for Karma Capital, one of India’s first equity hedge funds. Before Karma Capital, he served as the Head of Cross-border for the Indian investment bank, Cipher-Plexus Capital, where he specialised in M&A and private equity advisory. Before assuming his role with Cipher-Plexus Capital, he worked with the India-entry consulting firm, Tecnova, where he helped North European companies with their Indian growth strategies.

Mathias began his career with a Chennai-based hedge fund, LogicTree Capital, and holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Greenwich.

Operational Advisor

Minashree has over 7 years of experience in water and wastewater treatment, and environmental risk assessment. Prior to joining Pontoka, she was a Postdoctoral fellow at IIT Delhi, India in the Department of Civil Engineering. At IIT Delhi, her research was focused on emerging contaminants in water and wastewater, fate and transport of contaminants, mixture toxicity risk assessment, and developing risk assessment framework.

Dr. Minashree has attained her PhD from Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, IIT Dhanbad, Jharkhand. In her thesis on "Risk assessment, modeling and control of trihalomethanes (THMs) from drinking water", she has established the concentration of THMs in Indian drinking water systems, developed models for predicting the levels of THMs, assessed risk exposure effects of THMs on human health, and developed techniques for controlling THMs formation. Prior to her PhD, she was a Junior Research Fellow at IIT Dhanbad and worked on a project focused on disinfection by-products in rural India sponsored by the Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation (MDW&S), GoI, India. She has got several publications in well-renowned journals and presented her work in international and national conferences.

Her research interests are drinking water and wastewater treatment technologies, disinfection by-products, emerging contaminants in water and wastewater (environmental occurrence/fate and transport), environmental health risk assessment, exposure of contaminants in food, water and personal care products, antibiotic resistance, environmental chemistry, and environmental biotechnology.

Operational Advisor

Sonal is part of the faculty in the Department of Hydro and Renewable Energy (HRED) at IIT Roorkee (IITR). He aims to contribute to resolving energy and environment related issues faced by society. Prior to joining IITR, he worked as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management at the University of California at Berkeley on life cycle and techno-economic analysis of biochar, and as a Research Affiliate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on developing decentralized biomass torrefaction system operating in oxygen lean conditions (2019-20).

Prior to that, he was a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT working on biomass torrefaction and gasification. He also served as an Entrepreneurial Lead for his team in the NSF I-Corps and received funding of 50K USD to interview more than 100 stakeholders in the biochar and fertilizer market. Prior to this, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Tata Centre for Technology and Design, IIT Bombay and MIT, working on biomass gasification and pyrolysis with a major focus on utilizing garden waste and agro residue for thermal applications. Dr. Thengane earned his Ph.D. from IITB-Monash Research Academy (2011-15) working on a project funded by Orica Mining Services, Australia in the area of ammonia and nitric acid production using chemical looping. He earned his Master in Chemical Engineering from BITS Pilani (2009-11) and B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from LIT Nagpur (2005-09), India. His research interests are biomass conversion and upgrading, water treatment, waste management, chemical looping, process modelling, and techno-economic analysis.

Operational Advisor

Shubhi is the founder of The Material Library of India, which focuses on remodelling the use of industrial & agricultural waste materials by combining the knowledge and skills of traditional crafts with modern materials. In 2014, Shubhi graduated with M.A. in Material Futures at Central Saint Martins’ School of Art and Design in London where she developed her projects such as Life of a bullet & Traditional Futures. These projects were focused on manmade & agricultural waste and its impact on our everyday life. Prior to this Shubhi has been working as a surface designer for brands such as Givenchy, Balmain, Alexander McQueen, Ralph Lauren, among others.

Shubhi has advised companies such as Dr. Reddy’s, Godrej and IKEA on circularity, ethical raw material sourcing and repurposing of waste materials.

Shubhi has been a TEDx Speaker in 2018, a Lexus Design Award Finalist in 2018 and has won the CII Green Co. Best Practices Award in 2016. She has also been invited to present her work at various prestigious platforms such as Lakme Fashion Week, Mumbai in 2017, Ambiente Talents at Messe Frankfurt 2017, London Design Week 2014 to 2016, Dutch Design Week 2015 & 2020, Roche Bobois Student Design Competition in Paris 2013, among others.

Operational Advisor

Pratham is currently an Assistant Professor, Department of Hydro and Renewable Energy at IIT Roorkee. Prior to joining IIT Roorkee, he was a Postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech., Atlanta in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department. At Georgia Tech., his research was focused on process optimization, techno-enviro-economic analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA) of algal biofuels, syngas fermentation, solar fertilizers and direct air capture systems. He was working in collaboration with highly innovative sustainable fuels companies such as Algenol biofuels, Lanzatech and Global Thermostat.

Pratham completed his doctorate from IITB-Monash Research Academy – a joint venture between IIT-Bombay, India and Monash University, Australia. His thesis titled “Techno-enviro-economic evaluation of ammonia production from biomass gasification using multi-scale modelling”, was funded by Orica Mining Ltd. In this, he quantified the effect of biomass composition, process configuration, the supply chain, and the national economic and environmental scenario on the life cycle costing and LCA of the biomass-to-ammonia process. Such an analysis provides stakeholders with consistent and comparable data to objectively judge the viability of any renewable energy technology. This work has been published in venerable journals including Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Chemical Engineering Research and Design. His research has also been awarded ‘The best collaboration’ by the IITB-Monash Research Academy. Presently, he is extending this research to production of different sustainable fuels and chemicals.

Operational Advisor

Nikhil has over 12 years of experience working in the Indian power sector. Prior to this he headed the direct broking division of one of the foremost Reinsurance and Insurance Broking firms in the country for nearly a decade.

He has substantial experience working with commercial and industrial consumers, State Discoms, thermal and renewable energy generators, government and policymakers, and has handled numerous Open Access (and Captive) power supply and offtake transactions. He has been actively involved in The Renewable Energy Certification program since its inception in 2010, assisting generators with understanding the implications and benefits and of this new mechanism and undertaking end-to-end management of the entire chain of activities involved from accreditation and registration of the projects, issuance of Renewable Energy Certificates as well as the ultimate commercialisation through sale of green attributes.

Currently Nikhil serves as the Director at Energy Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd., a firm engaged in providing clients with solutions and services in all things related to power. They have experience working with and helping companies source renewable energy across India. Nikhil has a Bachelor of Commerce from Delhi University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (Finance and IT) from Fore School of Management.

Operational Advisor

Padmavati completed her Masters in Social work from Andhra University. After a brief stint as a human resource professional, she has been actively engaged in welfare work for animals and protection of urban trees for more than 24 years. The intense engagement on field gives her a deep insight on the practical aspects that influence results and goals, which are crucial for bridging the gap between policies and outcomes. She has led The Green Police project of Chandigarh Police and works as a Consultant with WWF-India.

Padmavati is also involved as a Project-Director for an ecological restoration project in Barsana, India. Given her immense and in-depth experience as a biodiversity and conservation expert, she aims to help companies and corporates understand the organic means to offset carbon emissions, by ensuring that local and native biodiversity and ecology is preserved.

Senior Analyst

Mohana supports Pontoka’s clients with critical research and planning of their environmental optimisation and innovation efforts. Mohana has obtained a Master degree in Applied Environmental Science from Halmstad University (Sweden), where her thesis analysed how companies address climate policies and how they align activities according to the GRI guidelines. She has another Master degree in Sustainable Development and Environment Management, and a Bachelor degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry from University of Mumbai (India).

Mohana has a background in environmental sustainability optimisations as a Sustainability Expert at an Austrian startup called beeanco which is a business club developing sustainability reports for SME’s and providing sustainability consultancy services. Before this, Mohana worked for the Tata Group where she assisted the efforts to reduce plastic waste by 50% and reducing ash disposal by 70%.

Operational Advisor

Mikhail has over 20 years of experience working in the Indian power sector. He is currently working at Energy Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd, on developing models for avoidance/reduction/mitigation/offset of carbon footprints across the societal spectrum, from individuals and societies to large organisations including through his cleanergy.eco initiative.

In his role as a Licensed Electricity trader (both renewables and thermal), he developed and spearheaded the business unit engaged in supplying power under Open Access to commercial and industrial consumers in various states, as well as supply of bulk power to various distribution companies during the early years of Open Access in the country. He was one of the first traders to undertake large scale market aggregation of consumers and generators to develop one of the largest such portfolios in the country and has been responsible for the transaction of over 15 billion units of energy. He has developed benchmarks for seamless service, delivery and end-to-end transaction management - from Open Access application processing, scheduling and despatch, energy accounting, energy adjustment, to billing.

Mikhail also introduced a service model for small and large renewable energy generators to benefit from the Renewable Energy Certification mechanism since its introduction in 2010, assisting generators with understanding the implications and benefits and of this new mechanism and undertaking end-to-end management of the entire chain of activities involved from accreditation of projects with nodal agencies.

Human Rights Specialist

Klara, a Danish national, is currently previously interned with Pontoka and holds a graduate student pursuing a Master’s degree in Global Area Studies in Denmark. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Indian and South Asian Studies in 2022. She holds a strong fascination for India, which has driven her to explore its intricate issues. Throughout her studies, she has been trained in both written and spoken Hindi, Indian history and culture, societal structures across regions of India, and India’s political institutions.

During her internship at Pontoka, Klara focused on the challenges businesses face in regard to Human Right Due Diligence. Her interest in ESG is prominently featured in her educational portfolio. She has devoted time to examine ESG reports’ impact on Indian businesses and its requirements from government institutions. She has submitted numerous academic research assignments on ESG in Indian companies and analysed ESG requirements in political institutions. Particularly focusing on the ‘S’ and ‘G’ aspects, she aims to deep dive further. Her motivation is to contribute to improving human rights and sustainable development.

Analyst

Jaydev has over 8 years of experience in Environmental Monitoring and Testing, especially in the domain of water and wastewater treatment, disinfection by-products formation (DBPs) in drinking water, and environmental risk assessment.

Before joining Pontoka, he was a Research Associate in the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad, as a part of an Indo-European project titled “Potential and Validation of Sustainable Natural & Advance Technologies for Water &Wastewater Treatment, Monitoring and Safe Water Reuse in India.” Meanwhile, his Ph.D. was on the topic “Development of Novel Adsorbent for the Removal of Natural Organic Matter (NOM) from Drinking Water” in the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad.

Prior to his Ph.D., he was a Junior Research Fellow at IIT Dhanbad and worked on a project, “Control of disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water supplies of India,” sponsored by the Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation (MDW&S), GoI, India. Before joining IIT Dhanbad, he served SGS India Pvt Ltd., Mumbai, as an Environmental Field Inspector. Jaydev has obtained a Master's degree (M.Sc.Tech) in Environmental Science and Technology from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi.