Leadership - Boards/Divisions

Dr. Varinder S Kanwar holds Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, M.E. in Structural Engineering, Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Development and BE in Civil Engineering. He carries more than 27 years of Research; Teaching and Administrative Experience. He is a fellow of Institution of Engineers and senior member of IEEE, Life Member of ISTE, ICI, IGS, IRC.

Dr. Kanwar holds academic and administrative positions in institutes like NIT Hamirpur, Government Polytechnic Hamirpur, Thapar University Patiala and Punjab Technical University Jalandhar. He served as the founding Registrar and further Vice Chancellor of Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh (NAAC A+). He is member of various inspection committees convened to grant affiliation to the University and to assess compliance with regulatory norms, He is also on the panel of Board of Studies – Civil Engineering of various Universities. Nominated as non-official member of State Level Working Committee – Town and Country Planning Department, Government of Himachal Pradesh. He served as Chairperson as well as member in NAAC Peer Assessment Teams. He is actively involved in industrial consultancy and technology development to provide suitable sustainable solutions in problems areas such as waste minimization, reuse or recycle of waste generated.

Dr. Kanwar has written 8 books, 80 research papers in national and international journals, 17 research papers in conferences, supervised 3 M.E. and 8 Ph.D. scholars, filed 10 patents out of which 3 are granted. He has completed 7, and continuing 2, Government funded research projects of more than 4 crore INR. His expertise research areas include Health Monitoring of Structures, Sustainable Environment and Alternate Construction Materials using Industrial Waste.

Dr Kanwar was felicitated by Government of Himachal Pradesh for “Excellence in Promotion of Environment Conservation and Sustainable Development” in the year 2021 and 2019. He is the recipient of “Time 2 Leap awards under the category Best Professor of the Year – Socio Environment Enterprises” awarded by Hon’ble Minister of State – MSME, Government of India in 2021. He was awarded as “Outstanding Concrete Technologist 2020” by Indian Concrete Institute and Ultratech Cement Ltd. Dr Kanwar is recipient of National Builder Award by Rotary Club of India in the year 2018.

Dr. A. Raj has been employed with the Quality Council of India (QCI) since 2015 and is currently posted as the CEO of NBQP after successfully setting up and running the ZED Division of QCI.

He has had an enthusiastic professional career of over 28 years, based on a PhD and Master’s Degree. He is also a Commerce Graduate from University of Delhi and a Certified Hospitality Educator.

Dr. Raj is a voracious trainer and has been intensely involved in training and development activities including Capacity Building programmes/webinars for various industry sectors at both national & international platforms & forums. He has represented QCI & presented papers at ASQ (Texas, USA), ARSO (South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Cameroon), IAQ/SAQ Shanghai (China), EoQ (Slovenia & Portugal), ICQEM (Spain), CSQ (Canada) amongst others. At the national level he has presented & showcased various initiatives of QCI at multiple forums & panel discussions including conclaves, investment summits, industry events of various State Governments apart from Capacity Building of Bankers of India under the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) initiative, reputed National Industry Chambers & Associations as well as at Supply Chain meetings of large Enterprises and OEMs. He has assisted in institutionalizing various benefits for MSME units through sustained engagement with the State Governments, RBI & Financial Institutions, Government e-Marketplace etc.

Formerly, Raj has been the Regional Head of a leading Technical University and also the Managing Director of an educational foundation. Raj has also trained and worked in managerial capacities with International Hospitality chains.

An avid traveller, Raj loves experiencing various cultures, cuisines and traditions and is fond of learning new languages.

An accomplished & tech savvy CXO level Business Transformation leader with 30+years’ of strong global work exposure across Manufacturing, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), NBFC, Banking & HR consulting. Track record of delivering significant business gains & entity-wide transformation programs using Digital as an enabler. Specialization in Lean, Six Sigma & Process Automation (including RPA, AI & ML).  Niche skill around trouble shooting & resolution with positive bottom-line impact. Deep experience ranging from devising tactical to strategic business solutions, driving innovation, executing organizational change, financial delivery & governance, nurturing & developing teams to contributing to diversity networks and social cause.

Rich exposure across multiple businesses/ functions, across geographies (UK, Africa, Europe & APAC).

An Industrial Engineer with management qualification, an Industry speaker on Transformation and a visiting guest speaker at top Engineering & Management institutions like IIT & IIM.

A strong champion of diversity – was the APAC Chair for Reach, Barclays Diversity & Inclusion program for people with disability& mental health.

Learning exposure:

• Head – PPID, Quality Council of India – Jul’22 till date
• Director & Head of Process Excellence, Barclays Bank (Barclays Global Service Centre)
• Quality Leader, GE Money India
• Black Belt, GE Capital Intl. Services
• HR Consultant & Profit Centre Head, ABC Consultants
• Industrial Engineer & Project Manager, GEEP Industries and LPS

Mr. N Venkateswaran holds Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) from Madurai Kamaraj University and Master of Science (M.S.) in Quality Management from BITS Pilani.,

He has about 30 years of working experience, out of which about 10 years from Industries (Power plant, Motor) and 20 years in Accreditation body.

Mr. Venkateswaran has sound knowledge of the management system, accreditation process, and its implementation. He has the ability to prepare policy papers on accreditation as inputs to Government/ regulators. As CEO (NABL), he was instrumental in signing MoUs with various Government / Regulators such as FSSAI, EIC, APEDA for Integrated assessment and with DGAQA, AERB and industry associations like EEPC, CREDAI. He has the capability to lead new strategic initiatives like Gunvatta Yatra, Manthan, Disha with clear output.

He is also knowledgeable in QCO’s, regulations/guidelines of various regulatory bodies/ Government departments. He is a member of various national and international committees related to conformity assessment standards. He is also a trainer / faculty for various conformity assessment standards.

Mr. Venkateswaran is Chair of the ILAC Accreditation Committee and also Member of Executive Council of APAC and ILAC. He is an APAC Lead Evaluator and evaluated various Accreditation Bodies in other economies such as USA, Japan, Russia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Malaysia.

Mr. Venkateswaran has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB) from 24 September 2025.

Mr. Vipin Sondhi is an alumnus of The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, The Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and did his schooling at The Lawrence School, Sanawar.

Mr. Sondhi has over three decades of experience in Manufacturing and Engineering based companies such as Ashok Leyland, JCBIndia ,Shriram Honda, Tata Steel and Tecumseh Products India, of which over two decades was as MD&CEO. He has a strong and proven track record as a leader, and is a passionate hands-on professional.

Mr. Vipin Sondhi was the MD & CEO of Ashok Leyland and a Director on the Board of Switch Mobility, a fully owned subsidiary of Ashok Leyland set up to manufacture Electric Vehicles. Ashok Leyland is the 2nd largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in India with an international footprint.

Prior to Ashok Leyland, he was MD &CEO of JCB India for over 13 years,and was a member of JCB’s global executive team. He led the JCB business, into five world class manufacturing plants situated in three locations, and established market leadership in the Construction Equipment Industry. JCB’s Made in India products were exported to over 100 countries cumulatively during his tenure. He was also a member of JCB’s Global Group Executive and also had charge of S.E.Asia and the Pacific.

He was appointed by the Government of India as the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal in December 2015. He has held the position of Vice President of the Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturers (SIAM) and Vice President of the Automotive Skill Development Council (ASDC).

A member of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) National Council, he is also the Chairman of CII’s National Mission on Technology, Innovation & Research and Chairman of CII’s National Committee on Future Mobility.

He serves on the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the BharatiyaYuva Shakti Trust; the BoT of The Ananta Centre and the BoT of the Sasakawa India Leprosy Foundation.

He was awarded the Confederation of India (CII) Young Manager’s Trophy in the year 2000; The Udyog Rattan Award by the Institute of Economic Studies in 2011; The CEO of the Year Award at CEO India Awards in 2014. He was also conferred with an Honorary Fellowship by the Centre for Excellence in Project Management (CEPM) in 2017 and The Economic Times ‘Most Promising Business Leader of Asia – Construction Equipment Industry in 2018-19.

Mr. Jalaj Ashwin Dani is a co-promoter of Asian Paints Ltd. After holding key leadership roles at Asian Paints across human resources, supply chain,chemicals, and international business, he stepped down in 2017 to pursue broader interests in technology, education, and social development. He currently serves as Chairman of Addverb Technologies (a robotics and automation company) and Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIM

Tiruchirappalli and IIIT Dharwad, and he sits on the boards of prominent organizations such as HDFC Ltd. and Havells India. Beyond business, he is actively involved in philanthropy through the Dani Foundation, focusing on education, wellness, sports, and rural development. Widely respected for his vision and leadership, Mr. Dani continues to make significant contributions to India’s industrial, educational, and social landscape.

Mr Dani’s key contributions are:

• Over 20 years of leadership in healthcare, education, rural transformation, skilling, sports, and disaster management.
• Member: PMKVY Steering Committee, Advisory Committee of the Fit India Movement
• Member of the National Council, CII & Co-Chair of the National Committee on Sports
• Trustee, Sir H. N. Reliance Foundation Hospital & Research Centre
• Governing Board Member, ISB (NGLB), Mumbai First, Project Mumbai, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University

Recognition

• Visionary Philanthropist of the Year, India Philanthropy Awards 2024
• Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar, Government of India (for sports promotion)

Dr. Ravi P. Singh is the former Provost (Vice Chancellor) at Adani University, Shantigram, Ahmedabad. He spearheaded the University which has focus areas on Green Energy, Green Infrastructure, Cyber security and sustainability as its core.

Prior to joining Adani University, Dr Singh was the fourth Secretary General of Quality Council of India (QCI) from 2014–2023. QCI is an independent autonomous body of Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. QCI’s mandate is to lead nationwide quality movement in India through its various boards like NABCB, NABL, NABH, NABET, & NBQP. Besides these functionally independent Boards, Dr. Singh also spearheaded and mentored the Special Projects Group within QCI through which QCI used to assess adherence to quality standards in all spheres of activity for promoting and ensuring quality in processes, products and services.

Dr Singh had held various positions of responsibility in institutions leading the quality initiative in the country. He has been the Governing Council member of the BIS. He has represented QCI in various National and International fora on quality.

Dr Singh has been in academic administration as the Deputy Director of AICTE, Dean in PTU, Founder Vice-Chancellor of Sharda University and Director at IGNOU in his career of more than 25 years before joining QCI.

He was awarded D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) in Sharda University (2020) and Quality Award -2018 by Institution of Engineers besides many others awards & fellowships. He was invited as speaker on many International Forums such as UNCTAD, EU parliament at Belgium, African Union at Addis Ababa and was part of Visitors’ Excellence Program of US Department of State and many others. Born and educated in Varanasi, Dr. Singh holds a Gold Medal at Masters in Physics from BHU, Varanasi. He has done his PhD and Post-doctoral fellowship in Physics from University of Western Ontario (now Western University), Canada.

Dr. Atul Mohan Kochhar obtained his MBBS and MD (Dermatology) from the prestigious Delhi University. He was awarded the University Gold medal for excellence in the field of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology. He is also a Diplomate of National Board (DNB- Dermatology and Venereology), a Member of the National Academy of Medical Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology.

He worked since 2003, as a Professor & Consultant in the Department of Dermatology & STD, Lok Nayak Hospital and Maulana Azad Medical College and, New Delhi.

Mr. Rizwan Koita, Chairperson, National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare providers (NABH) is an entrepreneur and philanthropist with a passion to leverage emerging technologies and business process innovation for meaningful social impact. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay & a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Mr. Koita co-founded CitiusTech, a global healthcare technology company. Under his leadership, CitiusTech became one of the fastest growing healthcare technology companies globally and became India’s 25th Unicorn in 2019 (the first Indian Unicorn in healthcare technology). Mr. Koita is the recipient of the prestigious IIT Bombay’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2019, and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of Year Award in 2013.

Dr. Ramanand N. Shukla is a senior quality professional with over 25 years of progressive experience, including extensive leadership responsibilities in quality assurance, conformity assessment, certification frameworks and governance of national quality programmes.

He has held senior leadership roles within the Quality Council of India (QCI), to promote and institutionalise quality across sectors. Most recently, he served as Senior Director and Head of the National Division for Industry Excellence (NDIE), where he led the design, development and implementation of national certification frameworks, notably, the Zero Defect Zero Effect (ZED) Certification programme for MSMEs, a scheme of Ministry of MSME and the System for Advance Manufacturing Assessment and Rating (SAMAR) programme for Defence Manufacturers, in collaboration of DRDO, Ministry of Defence. These initiatives aim at strengthening organizational excellence and supply-chain reliability.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Shukla led pan-India quality, environmental, health and safety systems for a multi-site organisation with operations across multiple locations. His responsibilities included enterprise-level quality assurance and business excellence initiatives, encompassing internal audit systems, performance review mechanisms, corrective action management, and continual improvement in geographically distributed operations.

Dr. Shukla has contributed as a speaker and expert member across multiple platforms addressing quality governance, food safety, sustainability and organizational excellence. He has also been a jury for various excellence awards/recognitions. In addition, he has also been a Master Trainer for the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for statutory Food Safety Officer training and a Certified Examiner for national quality awards. He has trained over 5,000 professionals across areas including quality management, business excellence, Zero Defect Zero Effect (ZED), food safety, auditing and assessment practices, contributing to large-scale capability building.

Dr. Shukla holds a Ph.D. in Science and a postgraduate qualification in Marketing Management, providing a strong foundation combining scientific rigor with management and strategic perspectives. His professional credentials include certification as a Lead Auditor for ISO 9001 and ISO 22000, qualification as an Assessor for ISO/IEC 17021-1 and ISO/IEC 17029.

Dr. Sandip Shah, Chairperson of the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL), is a medical professional and visionary leader with over 35 years of experience in transforming India’s healthcare landscape. A Gold Medalist in MD Pathology and Bacteriology from B.J. Medical College, Ahmedabad, Dr. Shah’s expertise spans pathology, molecular biology, and transplant immunology.

Dr. Shah is the Joint Managing Director at Neuberg Diagnostics, founder of Neuberg Supratech Reference Laboratories, and Honorary Director at the Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Center. He oversees more than 35 laboratories across Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh and has pioneered advancements in automation, transplant immunology, and molecular histopathology.