Since 2014 when I co-founded Oorja (www.oorjasolutions.org), I've dedicated my career to making clean energy accessible to India's largest and most underserved consumer groups: farmers and rural households.

Before becoming a clean energy entrepreneur eight years ago, I previously spent 20+ years working in India, the US and Europe in banking, consulting and international development. During my time leading for-profit company Oorja, I have worked with stakeholders from rural customers to financiers, philanthropic organisations to government representatives and other domestic and global ecosystem partners. In this journey, CLEAN and its members have been an excellent support.

I am excited to be contesting the CLEAN governing body elections 2022 and to bring my expertise and resources to give back to this community.

How will I make my mark if elected to CLEAN's board? I will:

• Leverage my experience and resources to raise funding for CLEAN to finance more activities for member organisations. I will also help practice prudent financial management and promote good governance.
  
  
• Strengthen investment facilitation for different types of capital – grant, debt and equity including blended finance and patient capital for member organisations to grow and deliver impact at scale; introduce regular roundtable discussions with investors, commercial lenders and government representatives.
  
  
• Endeavour to foster closer partnerships with state and regional governments for favourable policies and regulatory environment for the DRE sector; organise quarterly delegation of 4-5 members to visit the relevant ministries to lobby for incentives and advocate for more ambitious targets for DRE in the energy mix.
  
  
• Foster international collaborations with other industry alliances and networks such as SEforAll, GOGLA, ARE, IRENA, Mini-Grids Partnership, Efficiency for Access, etc. to receive technical assistance and bolster the capacity of member organisation to increase their geographical footprint.
  
  
• Introduce an acceleration program for capacity building of younger member organisations by offering accounting and legal aid and other business services; bring experts on board to advise on due diligence process, term sheet negotiations and preparation of financial models and other investment collaterals.
  
  
• Transform the CLEAN annual conference into an unconference so instead of one-way dialogues there is open forum for discussions, co-creation of projects, new ideas and frameworks and have more breakout sessions for members to discuss challenges and best practices; more time for networking that results in strategic, technology and commercial partnerships.
  
  

To know more about my professional background, please visit my LinkedIn page.

I ask that you consider voting for me to join as a new CLEAN board member and look forward to working with each of you.

Yours sincerely,

Amit Saraogi, Co-Founder and CEO, Oorja Development Solutions India Private Limited