The Green Warrior

A people person, GAIL (India)'s Sandeep Kumar Gupta is committed to ensuring that the country's largest gas distributor plays a leadership role in India's energy transition

- Manish Pant

THE MORNING SPRING breeze has a strong hint of the onset of early summer. A large number of beaming employees with boxes of sweets and chocolates are gathered outside the office of GAIL (India) Ltd’s Chairman & MD Sandeep Kumar Gupta to express their gratitude for their promotions. And Gupta, 58, greets each one of them with his trademark good-natured smile, wishing them the very best for their future.

The future is very much on GAIL’s mind. As India’s hunger for energy grows with each passing year, GAIL is preparing to play a pivotal role in the world’s largest energy transition to cleaner sources. Spearheading this will be Gupta, who has been in the petrochemicals industry for 35 years. The veteran—who started his career with the public sector Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) in 1988— seems to have settled well into his new role. “Although he is not from GAIL, he gets along well with everyone here,” says a senior company executive, requesting anonymity. In comparison to IOCL (that has over 33,000 employees), GAIL (with 4,800 employees) is much smaller and, thus, functions like a well-knit family, with a strong sense of bonding among staff. A people person, Gupta, who took charge in 2022, says, “All my life I have tried learning something good from everyone that I have met.”