Awadhesh Kumar Jha

Mr. Awadhesh Jha is the Executive Director, GLIDA (Formerly Fortum Charge & Drive India). Fortum, a clean energy company has embarked upon a journey to transform mobility in India by providing Energy as a Service (EaaS) to Electric Vehicles. Starting with a pilot of 4 AC Type-2 Charging Points in October 2017, presently it is operating over 450 Public Charging Points in 15 cities, 2 union territories in India for 4 Wheeler Passenger Electrical Vehicles (PEV).
He has over 3 decades of experience in the energy industry spanning across Government and Private sector. A Civil Engineering Graduate, he also holds a Master's in Business Administration for Working Managers from IIM- Lucknow.
He has been working with Fortum since July 2014. Prior to Fortum, he worked with Ministry of Water Resources for 15 years followed by six years in Hindustan Power Projects Pvt Ltd where Awadhesh was instrumental in securing concession of hydro projects and its development.
Awadhesh is passionate about sustainability and safety practices in our daily lives. He has been instrumental in developing EHS Management System, Procedures and Standards for Sustainability, Due Diligence and Supplier's Assessment in Hindustan Power Projects and for Fortum India as well.
His continuous pursuit to advance awareness and thought leadership in electric mobility, decarbonization, and sustainable development has evolved into establishing him as a distinguished Industry Thought Leader as one of the top voices and he's frequently invited as Guest Speaker at Global Mobility Forums & Energy Conferences to share his thoughts across various topics ranging from electric mobility to sustainability. He has curated and widely shared thought leadership content on the electric future of automotive technology including articles, blogs, keynotes, media interviews, panels, podcasts, social media messaging, speaking events, research papers, videos, and webinars.
He's the Executive Member of India Electric Mobility Council (IEMC) initiated by India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) to promote adoption of electric vehicles in the country.
He is always eager to support ideas that could change things for the better and help make the world a cleaner and healthier place. In his leisure, he likes to indulge in reading, watching Bollywood movies, cricket matches etc.