Ashish Puntambekar
Lead Designer
The Design Lab, Mumbai
Currently employed as head of Strategic Planning and Design Thinking at a Fortune 500 Company, with the main responsibility to think up New Projects and to lead the Design Thinking initiatives across all business verticals of the firm. Towards this end I have authored India’s first corporate Design Thinking Standard.
Earlier in a five year tenure as a Corporate planner, in the CEO’s office, I have been the coordinator of an International Advisory Board consisting of Leading Diplomats, G–7 finance ministers, Economists from Harvard and Senior Executives from around the world.
There are three large initiatives which have won me national recognition over the last four years. The first is the conceptualization of the ” Defence Economic Zone ” project. This project has now become a Ministry of Defence, Govt. of India project.
The Second initiative has been internal and company focused. I have set up a Design Lab to drive New product development and to crash time to Rev 00 prototype, in the areas of performance materials for Aerospace and Speciality Polymers for Construction. The Centre of Design thinking which I head, is also transcribing ideas from world leaders such as Google, 3M and WL Gore and modifying them for execution within the firm.
The third initiative is in the area of Smart Cities Financing. I was recently invited by the Asian Development Bank ( ADB ) to make a presentation in Manila on the subject of raising very large amounts of capital without recourse to the Govt. budget. This Urban Equity Withdrawal ( UEW ) plan is now under active consideration by the Ministry of Finance / NITI Aayog.
Over the last 25 years, I have worked with some of the finest talents globally and specifically in the area of large Project Design. Along the way I have also acquired a deep knowledge of financial markets during a 5 year assignment as a crude oil derivative trader.
Helping Organisations achieve Transformational Growth is my abiding professional interest.
