Sumant Sinha: Green tech to triumph over drilling

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Sumant Sinha: Green Tech to Triumph Over Drilling"

Podcast: The Interview (BBC World Service)
Date: July 30, 2026
Host: Lianna Byrne
Guest: Sumant Sinha, Founder & CEO, Renew

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Episode Overview

This episode features a conversation with Sumant Sinha, the founder of Renew, one of India’s largest renewable energy companies. The interview explores Sinha’s personal journey from an international finance career to spearheading India’s green energy revolution, the strategic and personal challenges he has faced, insights into the country’s clean energy policies, and his perspective on the global climate and energy conversation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Career, Family Background, and Founding Renew (02:54–13:11)

• Breaking New Ground in Family:
  Sumant Sinha describes being the first in his family to pursue a business career instead of government service, despite his father being a respected politician and finance minister.
  "Nobody would have been surprised if I had chosen a career in the civil service or if I had decided to become a politician in my father’s footsteps... But I wanted to really follow my own path." (02:54–03:21)

• Entrepreneurial Motivation and Learning:
  Sinha attributes his entrepreneurial lessons to real-world exposure during his corporate life, not childhood teaching.
  "I learned (business) along the way as I went... In my corporate career, I came across a lot of people running corporations, doing it successfully. That really taught me what it took to create value." (03:33–04:14)

• Academic Journey and Importance of Luck:
  Sinha recounts choosing IIT Delhi over an economics degree due to timing, calling it “one of the luckiest accidents” of his life. (05:37–06:23)

• Entry Into Finance:
  After public policy studies at Columbia, he randomly landed a job at Citibank without prior finance background.
  "I didn’t really know very anybody in the US... I needed a job and so I applied everywhere and as luck would have it, I got a job in Citibank and that too at the very last minute." (07:09–07:41)

• Finance Career Realities:
  He describes investment banking as “cutthroat,” involving 14–15 hour days, seven days a week:
  "Typically working 14, 15 hour days, working seven days a week was not very unusual." (08:16)

• Return to India and the Switch to Entrepreneurship:
  After 10+ years in finance, he was “discontent” and sought broader impact, leading him to a senior role in a business conglomerate in India and eventually his entrepreneurial leap.
  "I got the chance to work in a company which was in the renewable energy space. And that really opened my eyes to this whole area of climate change." (11:39–13:11)

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2. Starting Renew – Challenges and Growth (15:00–19:16)

• Early Hurdles and Raising Capital:
  Sinha highlights difficulty in securing funds—venture capitalists found his pitch too big, private equity considered it too early-stage.
  "They said, this is too much capital for us... when I went to private equity guys, they told me company was too early stage..." (15:15–16:06)

• Co-Founding with His Wife and Family Involvement:
  Although his wife, Vishali, co-founded Renew with him and remains involved, Sinha insists it’s a professionally run business. She has clear, independent responsibilities and reports directly to the board.
  (16:06–17:07)

• Advantages of Working with a Spouse:
  "Who better to have that than your wife who is equally committed and as committed as you are to making sure that the business is successful." (17:07)

• Company Scale and Integration:
  Renew now owns 15 gigawatts of wind and solar, has two major solar manufacturing plants, employs 5,000 people, and manages over 200 sites.
  "We’re now at a point where we are India’s second largest renewable energy company in terms of asset ownership..." (17:58)

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3. Lessons Learned and Reflections as a Founder (19:16–20:22)

• Hardest Choices:
  Sinha reflects on the challenge of deciding to list outside India (“in hindsight, not the correct one”) and the emotional difficulty of letting go of early team members who can’t grow with the company.
  "The hardest decisions really are people decisions..." (19:27–20:05)

• Early Vision and Evolving Ambition:
  His initial focus was simply on survival and success with a few projects. Ambitions to transform India’s energy landscape developed gradually.
  "In the beginning, our ambitions are quite modest. It’s only over the years that those ambitions began to change." (20:22)

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4. India’s Clean Energy Transition & Geopolitical Context (21:00–23:18)

• India’s Progress and Motivation:
  Sinha believes India has done “a terrific job” with renewables, originally for climate reasons, now equally about energy security—since 85% of India’s fossil fuels are imported.
  "India recognizes that we import all of our fossil fuels... and that’s a dependency that is very unhealthy for us." (21:21)

• Geopolitics and Global Pullback:
  He’s concerned by global retreats (including the US) from climate commitments, but is optimistic:
  "Ultimately I do believe that climate change is one of the most central issues facing humanity... Eventually I feel that technology... will triumph over drilling things out of the ground." (22:37)

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5. Clean Energy and Social Impact (23:18–23:49)

• Democratization of Energy:
  Sinha argues that distributed clean energy (e.g., rooftop solar) is “more democratic” than centralized generation, helping bridge rich-poor divides.
  "Clean energy can be put up on one’s roof... it can become very cheap. So all of that is going to bring renewable energy much closer to the common man." (23:28)

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6. Sinha’s Long-Term Legacy (23:49–24:39)

• How He Hopes to Be Remembered:
  "I hope that people think of me as one of the architects of the clean energy transition in India—not just as one of the people who created policies or who talked about it, but somebody who actually went out and got it done." (24:06)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Choosing His Path:
  "But, you know, eventually I thought, it’s somebody else’s path, and I wanted to follow my own path and create my own journey." — Sumant Sinha (04:57)

• On Early Entrepreneurial Risks:
  "Here’s an opportunity. I just now have to jump off the plane and, you know, find my way through." — Sumant Sinha (13:11)

• On Global Climate Setbacks:
  "If we don’t act with the absolute highest sense of urgency on it, then, you know, it’s going to lead to 2 degrees plus temperature change, which is going to be really, really damaging to the world as a whole." — Sumant Sinha (22:37)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment Description | Timestamp | |-------------------------------------------------------|---------------| | Family background and early career choices | 02:54–04:57 | | Academic experiences and “lucky” breaks | 05:23–06:36 | | Finance career and culture | 07:09–08:47 | | Return to India and shift to entrepreneurship | 09:29–11:39 | | Founding Renew: capital and challenges | 15:00–16:06 | | Working with spouse as co-founder | 16:06–17:49 | | Scaling up, manufacturing, and social impact | 17:58–19:16 | | Hardest founder decisions and vision | 19:16–20:22 | | India’s clean energy progress and global context | 21:00–23:18 | | Social equality through renewables | 23:18–23:49 | | Sumant Sinha’s legacy and hopes | 23:49–24:39 |

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Overall Tone

Sumant Sinha is frank, reflective, and optimistic about the future of clean energy—both for India and globally. He is clear-eyed about the challenges (capital, people issues, geopolitical wavering) but confident that technological innovation and entrepreneurial drive will secure a greener future.

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Useful For

Anyone interested in:

• Entrepreneurial journeys in emerging markets
• Renewable energy business models and policy in India
• Navigating career choices and big transitions
• Global climate change politics and technology's role in solving them
• Balancing personal and professional priorities in family businesses

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For more in-depth conversations, find "The Interview" on BBC Podcasts.

Transcript

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[Lianna Byrne]

Hello, I'm BBC presenter Lianna Byrne and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world.

[Samanth Sinha]

I want to get freedom. I like that.

[Podcast Advertiser]

Freedom.

[Narrator (Business Event Promo)]

A gender equal world would be a better world for men too.

[Interviewer]

We need to cease fire. We need healing, we need trust. These companies don't really. They don't care what governments do.

[Samanth Sinha]

This is a war. The first thing that we want is the war to end.

[Lianna Byrne]

For this interview, I met Samanth Sinha, the founder of Renew, one of India's largest renewable energy companies. Sinha began his career in finance, working in New York and London before walking away from the corporate world in his 40s to make a bet on renewable energy. In 2011, he founded Renew with the ambition of helping transform India's energy system. Today, it's one of the country's largest renewable energy companies, generating 1.8% of India's electricity and playing a major role in one of the world's biggest clean energy transitions. India is one of the world's most polluted countries, with toxic air being a recurring problem in Delhi and its neighbouring regions. In northern India, and especially during winters,

[Interviewer]

you're going to hear about why he

[Lianna Byrne]

decided to bet on the green industry and what he makes of countries pulling back on their climate commitments.

[Samanth Sinha]

It worries me because ultimately I do believe that climate change is one of the most central issues facing humanity. If we don't act with the absolute highest sense of urgency on it, then you know it's going to lead to 2 degrees plus temperature change, which is going to be really, really damaging. But, you know, eventually I feel that technology which is driving climate change efforts will triumph over drilling things out of the ground.

[Lianna Byrne]

Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Samantha Sinha.

[Samanth Sinha]

In my Family, I was the first person to do an MBA or even consider, therefore, a job not in the government. And so when I started off thinking about doing something on my own in entrepreneurial, then it was something which was quite new, quite novel in my family. Nobody would have been surprised if I had chosen a career in the civil service or if I had decided to become a politician in my father's footsteps. That would have been entirely natural. But I wanted to really follow my own path. And becoming an entrepreneur, I felt, was something that could take me in that direction.

[Interviewer]

Was there anybody who taught you about money as a child and making money and that kind of entrepreneurial spirit?

[Samanth Sinha]

Yeah, not really, now that you asked me that question. Not really. I think I learned it along the way as I went. And of course, in my corporate career and in my investment banking career, I came across a lot of people running corporations, doing it successfully. And that really taught me what it took to create value, why people invested in companies, why investors invested in companies, what it took to create value in them, and how to do that. So getting that exposure during my corporate life was actually very useful because it taught me how companies actually get into business areas, how they done businesses, and how value is truly created.

[Interviewer]

Now, your dad, he became a finance minister. Did that teach you a lot about leadership?

[Samanth Sinha]

You know, in some ways it did, but in some ways also not. Because in my family, you know, everybody pursues their own path. And most of the time that my father was the finance minister, I was actually not in India. I was actually outside of India at the time. And so I didn't really overlap and see his political career that closely, frankly, because I was not in India most of the time.

[Interviewer]

It's interesting. Sometimes people rebel against what their parents are doing because you see what perhaps politics or being a writer is doing, and you say, actually, I don't really want to go down that path. Maybe that made you more or less interested in government.

[Samanth Sinha]

In some ways, yes. But in some ways it was also very attractive because obviously I'd seen my father's very successful political career, and secondly, obviously he had a lot of connects and so on. So it might have been easy for me to. Or easier for me to get into politics. And. But, you know, eventually I thought, it's somebody else's path, and I wanted to follow my own path and create my own journey. And that, to me, really was the most exciting thing I could do with my life.

[Interviewer]

Tell me about when you enrolled in universities. Quite an interesting story there that you were about to go somewhere and Then ended up going somewhere else. And actually that was quite. Luck and timing came into it as one of the luckiest accidents of your life.

[Samanth Sinha]

Yeah, you know, all of these things sometimes play out and said independently. I was supposed to, you know, go and study economic in one of the top universities in India, but I'd also got admission to one of the IITs or the Indian Institutes of Technology, which are very hard to get into. There's a very competitive entrance examination. I had got admission therefore, through that exam into one of the IITs as well. And I was frankly confused about which direction to go. And as luck would have it, that year, the IIT session started earlier. So I ended up going there and then I liked it and I just ended up staying on. And that's what made me an engineer. And, you know, it taught me a lot of things, actually. Going to IIT and spending four years with really, frankly some of the smartest people that one can come across in the world.

[Interviewer]

And you also studied management at IIM Calcutta and public policy at Columbia. What do you think shaped your thinking the most in terms of what you do now? Or was it really a combination of all those three?

[Samanth Sinha]

I would say in terms of my approach to life, in terms of the way I think probably IIT Delhi is what shaped me the most. And then after that, I think it was a series of top on experiences which I think all contributed in some way. But, you know, life is long, life is winding, and you never know what contributes how to your journey. And so it was really a combination of all the educational experiences, my work experiences, that finally got me to become an entrepreneur in India.

[Interviewer]

Now, before that, of course, you mentioned earlier that you went into finance. So why finance? What was the jump off point for you?

[Samanth Sinha]

There's, you know, frankly speaking, when I was in the us, you know, I'd finished my master's at Columbia. I didn't really know very anybody in the us I had no networks, no contacts. I was frankly just applying everywhere I could possibly apply. You know, I needed a job and so I applied everywhere and as luck would have it, I got a job in Citibank and that too at the very last minute. So it was a little bit of chance, I would say, that I ended up getting into finance, but a very fortunate opportunity from my standpoint.

[Interviewer]

And what was that like as a first job? I'm sure that's quite tough. Banks like those are known to be hardworking.

[Samanth Sinha]

It was very difficult, actually, Liana. And the reason is that I had never really been exposed to the world of finance. I didn't know a lot about how tough and competitive and cutthroat investment banking could be and would be. I just knew that I was willing to work very hard and put in the hours that were required.

[Interviewer]

It's interesting because a lot of people start out on their careers in finance. And when you say cutthroat, what do you mean? And what kind of hours were you doing?

[Samanth Sinha]

You know, the whole thing in investment banking was how many hours a week did you work? You know, did you work 100 hours a week or not on a regular basis? So, you know, typically working 14, 15 hour days, working seven days a week was not very unusual. And if you were not willing to put in that effort and time, then you probably wouldn't be around for too long. At the same time, it was a very up and up or out kind of an organization in terms of investment banking in general. So either you performed and you delivered or you were asked to leave.

[Interviewer]

Did you ever think that you would stay at Citibank or on Wall Street? Because I know it's a tough job, but it's also a good job, isn't it?

[Samanth Sinha]

It is, but you know, I've been doing it for about 10, 11 years and I realized that that wasn't something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Investment banking at some level rewards specialization. And I wanted my career to be much broader than that and really to get exposure into a wider variety of areas. And so I felt that I needed to do something different. And that's really when the opportunity of going back to India in a much more broader and different kind of role popped up. And I said, you know, this is something that I have to pursue.

[Interviewer]

Well, tell me about that. What was the role that popped up for you?

[Samanth Sinha]

You know, during one of my trips to India, I had met the chairman of one of India's largest business conglomerates. He wanted to hire somebody from outside India for the finance role. And that's when I met him. And he offered me the job of coming in as his finance head for the organization for the conglomerate. And it was a very interesting opportunity to come into corporate India at a very, very senior level and really go from investment banking to a corporate career and a corporate life. And that was an opportunity that I just couldn't pass upon. Pl it also aligned with my desire to go back to India at some point. And so, you know, because of all of those reasons, I said, this is an opportunity I can't pass upon and I must take it. But at the same time, moving from a very settled life in the US was not straightforward. But, you know, my, my wife and I bit the bullet and we decided to go back to India.

[Interviewer]

What was different between that job and the one that you'd left in New York?

[Samanth Sinha]

Well, they were vastly different. First of all, one was investment banking, which as I said, was really about giving advice to people. The other one was actually about making decisions actively about where to invest capital of your own and then living with the consequences of those investments. As an investment banker, you really worked with corporates at a very senior level, really with the CEO or the cfo, and you just sort of work at a relatively superficial level with them. Here you were really deeply embedded into an organization and you had to work with many different levels of the firm. Thirdly, a job in investment banking, at least my job had been very global. The Indian job was very much rooted in the Indian context, although it cut across different sectors. And I would say lastly, working in India in that particular role, I got an exposure to a whole bunch of different sectors because our group had invested across many different areas.

[Interviewer]

It sounds like you really enjoyed the job. So tell me when you decided to set up your own business, because again, you could have stayed in that job and maybe been perfectly happy.

[Samanth Sinha]

That is true. And one must ask why I decided to take all the decisions I did. But I guess at some level, as I said, there was a level of discontent in that eventually my goal was to start something on my own. And the more I worked with other people, the more I realized that the things that I did not have that that would allow me to become an entrepreneur was capital of my own. I didn't have the understanding of his specific sector where I could actually find a business opportunity. And the third thing was I did not inherently have the risk taking capability because I still needed to work and make sure that my family was taken care of. I got the chance to work in a company which was in the renewable energy space. And that really opened my eyes to this whole area of climate change. And this is, I'm talking about 17, 18 years ago. And it seemed to me, as I said, even then, that climate change would become a very significant issue for humanity and an area that we would have to get into in a much bigger way and deal with. And so from a purely business standpoint, I felt it was a sector that was still in its early days and therefore would offer me opportunities from an entrepreneurship lens. And so I then really pushed myself into doing that. I, I said, look, let here's an opportunity I just now have to jump off the plane and, you know, find my way through. And so that's what I did. I essentially left my job and I started this company, Renew.

[Lianna Byrne]

You're listening to the interview from the BBC World.

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[Lianna Byrne]

Samanth Sinha is a seasoned interviewee. He's accustomed to discussing energy policy, investment and India's green ambitions. But what struck me was how much more reflective he became when we moved away from targets and technology. And we really talked about the choices behind his career, about the influence of his family, the risks he took, and the difficult personal decisions involved in building a company. Okay, let's return to my conversation with Somehan Sinha.

[Interviewer]

What did Renew actually look like at the start? Where do you even start with renewable energy company? Because one, as you said, there is so much capital involved. And also, yeah, it's quite a complex business, isn't is.

[Samanth Sinha]

And you know, to tell you an interesting story, when I started looking today's capital, I had hired about six or seven people. I built a small pipeline of 100 odd megawatts of projects and I needed to raise to fund those projects about $60 million. Now when I went to the venture capitalists to look for capital because, you know, we were a pre revenue company at that time, they said, look, this is too much capital for Us, we're not used to deploying such large amounts of capital. So you really have to go to the private equity guys. When I went to the private equity guys, they told me that the company was too early stage and therefore they couldn't. It wasn't interesting from their standpoint. So it took a lot of pounding, the payment before we found an investor who was willing to come in. Then we really got started and the whole shape of the company then began to change quite substantially.

[Interviewer]

This is a family business, isn't it? Your wife Vishali also co founded Renew with you and remains part of the company today. So how does that work? How do you handle disagreements together if you're, you're both at the head of the company?

[Samanth Sinha]

Yeah, you know, actually I wouldn't say we are a family run business. I would say that we are a professionally run business. It just so happens that both I and my wife work in it. I of course founded the company and I am the CEO of the company. Vishali runs some aspects of our business. But I think it's very clear to our investors and to everybody within the company as to what the management and governance of the company is. And we try to keep it as professionally run and managed as we can. And Vishali has certain areas of responsibility within the company and she runs those relatively independently. And because she's my wife, she reports directly to the board. We have an independent board.

[Interviewer]

What are the advantages and perhaps disadvantages of building a company with your spouse?

[Samanth Sinha]

There are many advantages in that. As an entrepreneur who started the company, it's very important for me to find people who are equally committed to the company as I am and who have the same sense of ownership and drive towards the company. But who better to have that than your wife who is equally committed and as committed as you are to making sure that the business is successful. So she brings in a lot of those elements into the company as well. And you know, therefore anything that is happening in the company where she feels that things are, you know, going off track, especially an organizational build kind of issues. I think she, she has a, she has a point of view and getting that input from her can be quite useful.

[Interviewer]

Now we'll go back. You raised all this capital. Now let's talk about growth of the company. How did you grow it and what scale are you at now?

[Samanth Sinha]

Yeah, so we've had a pretty good run over the last 15 years. We are now at a point where we are India's second largest renewable energy company in terms of asset ownership. We own about 15 gigawatts of wind and solar assets that we've built ourselves over the years. We have a fully integrated execution model. So we do everything from project development to execution of the projects to running them and of course owning them as well. Over the last four years, we've also gone into manufacturing of solar panels and solar cells. So we have two very large factories now that do that. We are further backward integrating into making wafers and ingots which go into cells which then go into making the solar modules. So we're becoming a pretty large solar manufacturing company as well. We employ about 5,000 people in the company now, and that number will increase as our manufacturing business goes up. We manage over 200 sites all across. As India, we see our role not just as a company that has to create value for its shareholders, which of course we have to because without that we won't have access to more capital, but we also see our role really as a company that is not just playing a commercial role, but is also playing a pioneering role in helping develop India's clean energy sector.

[Interviewer]

Just looking back at the 15 years of you building the company, was there a tough decision that you had to make as a founder that really stands out to you? Was there a deal that you wish you had said yes or no to?

[Samanth Sinha]

I think one of the things that we perhaps should not have done was to list outside India. But at the time we took the decision that was the right decision. But things are subsequently turned out in the manner that that decision seems in hindsight to have not been the correct one. But, you know, it is what it is now. But having said that, the hardest decisions really are people decisions because, you know, some people join you very early in the process. They show faith and commitment in you. And then over a period of time, not everybody is able to evolve into the roles that you would want them to. And because you have deep long term relationships with them, it becomes hard to take those decisions.

[Interviewer]

Then, yeah, people management can be extremely tough. But yeah, I mean, you spent years in finance before betting your own money on renewable energy. It's interesting. What did you see in 2011 that convinced you that the future was going to look fundamentally different from the present?

[Samanth Sinha]

You know, at the time that you start, it's very hard to really forecast where you're going to get to. So in the beginning it was really all about trying to get the first few projects done, trying to demonstrate that we could execute on the ground, that we could hire people, that we could manage them, that we could create a company, etc. And so in the beginning, it was really not about creating a very large organization and trying to change India's electricity landscape. It is much more about survival and doing the first few projects properly. So that is really how we started off. And in the beginning, our ambitions are quite modest. It's only over the years that those ambitions began to change.

[Interviewer]

Where do you think India is at in terms of renewable energy today? Because to give a wider context, we have a lot of conversations about India taking oil from Russia. Narendra Modi has argued that, well, it is still a developing country, so we need cheap oil wherever it can come from. So do you think that India can become a renewable powerhouse?

[Samanth Sinha]

Look, I think India has done a terrific job on the clean energy transition, and it's for a variety of reasons. Of course, climate change is how it all started. That is what drove the initial rollout in clean energy. But now, especially with what's happening globally, with all the wars going on and the geopolitical situation being what it is, India recognizes that we import all of our fossil fuels, or at least 85% of it, and that's a dependency that is very unhealthy for us. And so therefore, energy security is something that we have to work on, on with a high degree of urgency. And the solution for that is to move as quickly as possible into clean energy. Whether it is using renewable energy to generate electricity, whether it is to use renewable energy to power things like data centers or create green fuels like green hydrogen and green ammonia. All of those are areas that now the government is very strongly now pushing forward.

[Interviewer]

It does seem as though the conversation has shifted because we were talking a lot about green energy over the last couple of years, but then, and obviously the US President, Donald Trump, the US Is the biggest global economy in the world. He's saying things like, drill, baby, drill. They've pulled back on their climate commitments. So have other countries around the world. So does that worry you?

[Samanth Sinha]

No, of course it does. It worries me because ultimately I do believe that climate change is one of the most central issues facing humanity. If we don't act with the absolute highest sense of urgency on it, then you know it's going to lead to 2 degrees plus temperature change, which is going to be really, really damaging to the world as a whole. It'll lead to all sorts of consequences on food security, migration, droughts, et cetera. So the consequences are going to be quite dire. But, you know, eventually I feel that technology, which is driving climate change efforts, will triumph over drilling. Things out of the ground. So I think longer term it's going to eventually be a situation where the energy transition wins out.

[Interviewer]

And what do you think about clean energy and how it could help equality, essentially the divide between rich and poor is quite stark in India. Do you think that that's going to help with that?

[Samanth Sinha]

I think that clean energy, ultimately it's a little bit more democratic than large single location power generating stations. Because clean energy can be put up on one's roof through government subsidies, it can become very cheap. So all of that is going to bring renewable energy much closer to the common man.

[Interviewer]

I mean, we were talking about what clean energy is going to look like in 20 years time, but what would you hope people would say what your contribution to India's development and energy future was? You might be retired in 20 years, who knows? But when they talk about renewable energy, how would you like to be spoken about in the mix?

[Samanth Sinha]

20 years. Of course, I'll no longer be active. At the very least, I hope that people think of me as one of the architects of the clean energy transition in India and not just as one of the people who created policies or who talked about it, but somebody who actually went out and got it done. And if people recognize that I made a contribution in that area and helped set the industry up as being one of the early movers, I think that would be fine from my standpoint.

[Lianna Byrne]

Thank you for listening to the interview. You'll find more more in depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including episodes with Rafael Grassi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, US journalist Maggie Haberman and Jim Continenza, CEO of Kodak. Until the next time. Bye for now.

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