THE ENERGY INTERVIEW
Sumant Sinha, who was then CEO of Suzlon, wanted them to build something of their own.
At the time, sustainability was becoming a subject of interest, but not yet a sector many people believed could stand on its own two feet.
“ People in government or in business thought it was a‘ nice to do’. But nobody thought you could actually make money from a sustainabilityrelated business,” she explains. Nevertheless, that uncertainty did not deter them. Instead, it sharpened their thinking.
“ If you’ re very comfortable with something, the opportunity to create value isn’ t as great,” she adds.“ And if something isn’ t really understood by the ecosystem, but you have the conviction, then perhaps you must go for it.” That idea was the seed for ReNew’ s founding.
Vaishali was not, by her own account, the obvious candidate to help run it.“ I thought there was no real role for me at ReNew. I hadn’ t been an engineer, hadn’ t had any experience in that space.”
At first, the company was connected to a financial services advisory platform, which made sense given her background. But once Goldman Sachs funded the business, and funded it at five times the amount requested, the scale of the opportunity changed.
“ Suddenly there was a huge amount to be done and we were a small team, so I got sucked into ReNew accidentally, not intentionally,” she says.“ But as they say, the rest is history.”
“ EITHER YOU UNDERSTAND SUSTAINABILITY AND YOU GET IT, OR YOU DON’ T”
Vaishali Nigam Sinha Co-Founder ReNew
Learning the terrain The early years of ReNew were anything but simple. An old adage in the world of business is that“ the first million is the hardest”. In the world of energy, the same is true for the first 100 megawatts.
Establishing an energy provider from the ground up demands a different kind of work, one rooted in geography, politics and people, rather than spreadsheets.
“ Acquiring land, engaging with communities, dealing with people, it wasn’ t something we’ d done in the past,” she says.“ It was a steep learning curve.”
“ We were very clear that we wanted to do good business, but also in a good way, a clean energy business done in a clean way, with good governance, good community engagement and community values.”
26 May 2026