Monique Aubry, Ph.D., is an Associate professor at the School of Business and Management, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Now retired from full professorship, she pursues her research on two main topics: the development of megaprojects and organizing for projects. The results of her work have been published in major academic journals in project management and presented at several research and professional conferences.

She founded the Lab for Transfer on innovative practices in project context now being at the head of the director committee. She is a member of the Project Management Research Chair and of the UQAM’s Health and Society Institute. In 2012, she received the IPMA Research Award for her research on Project Management Offices.

Before joining UQAM, Monique Aubry was senior project manager in a major Canadian financial group for more than 20 years. Until recently, she was a senior editor for Project Management Journal and a member of the PMI’s Standards Advisory Group and the Research Inform Steering Committee.

Stewart Clegg is Distinguished Professor of Management at the University of Technology, Sydney and the recipient of the 2016 PMI Research Achievement Award. He has recently published Project Management: A Value Creation Approach with Torgeir Skyttermoen and Anne Lise Vaagaasar (2020) which is receiving rave reviews. For instance, Ben Flyvbjerg had this to say:

Project Management: A Value Creation Approach is the textbook on project management we have all been waiting for. Solidly based on cutting-edge social science it takes the field forward in ways that will hugely benefit students, complete with great case studies, guidance on further readings, and which videos to watch. It even has access to slides for lecturers. Get it, read it, use it!

Stewart’s work in project management has deep roots in organization and management theory in which field he is widely recognized professionally as one of the leading global contributors (indicated by an h-index of 92).

Jairam Panch is the Managing Director of Turner India and Vice President of Turner International LLC, USA. He has an industry experience of three decades in handling various leadership roles at both the project and corporate level.

Jairam has been instrumental in establishing the Turner brand in India by securing and delivering large scale contracts, notable being the world’s tallest statue - iconic “Statue of Unity” project and currently working on 2 largest and busiest airports in India - Bangalore and Delhi. Under his guidance, Turner India is currently managing large size projects worth more than $5BN of construction volume in various segments such as residential, mixed use, commercial, retail, aviation, and industrial.

Jairam is passionate about improving the University-Industry connect and regularly participates in jury, seminars and publications. He is associated with industry associations like AMCHAM, CII and IGBC and is an active member of the prestigious India Leadership Council. He is also passionate on mentoring people, continuous improvement, community affairs and an avid reader on current affairs and biographies.

Jairam holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from VNIT, Nagpur. He completed his Post- graduation in Urban and Regional Planning from CEPT, Ahmedabad and Executive Management program from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Chicago.

Nuno is a Professor of New Infrastructure Development. Nuno focuses his research on the design of structures and processes can bring the best of people in collective action arenas, and make the world a better place to live and share with future generations.

Nuno's research has been predominantly informed by studying capital-intensive infrastructure development projects so-called 'megaprojects'. With his PhD students and collaborators, Nuno has developed theory, conceptual frameworks, and methods for communicating with key societal actors fundamental relationships between megaproject behaviour, value creation and value distribution. Nuno’s research focuses on the design of development processes, governance structures, and contracting and procurement strategies. More recently, Nuno has started to study the role of organizational design in tackling the Grand Challenges of the XXI century including population growth, climate change, and the development of the Global South . Nuno was the lead editor of Duality by Design: The Global Race to Build Africa's Infrastructure (Cambridge Press, 2019); and is currently authoring a book for MIT Press, A Theory of Megaprojects, Value Creation and Value Distribution.

Nuno has designed and teaches three graduate-standing courses - Megaproject Leadership and Governance; Organization Design and Value Creation; and Infrastructure and Business Ecosystems. Nuno has worked or done research with various organizations including CH2M HILL, Intel, Rolls Royce, BAA (now Heathrow Ltd), BP, Manchester City Council, Network Rail, London2012, Crossrail, High speed 2, Thames Water, and the UK Cabinet; Larsen &Toubro and DFCCIL (India), World Bank, UNHabitat (Egypt), JICA (Japan); Lamata (Nigeria); UNRA and KCCA (Uganda); and OECD.

In 2009, Nuno was the lead editor of the special issue of California Management Review Infrastructure meets Business: Building New Bridges, Mending Old Ones in 2009. Nuno co-founded and acts as research director of the MBS Infrastructure Development Research Group. Nuno is the leading author of two books published with the Project Management Institute - Building Options at Project Front-end Strategizing (2014, with Guilherme Biesek) and Megaproject Organization and Performance: The Myth and Political Reality (2017, with Colm Lundrigan, Jeff Pinto, and Phanish Puranam). In 2013, Nuno co-founded the annual workshop series, Megaprojects Workshop: Theory meets Practice.

Nuno was born in Lisbon, Portugal, where he trained as a civil engineer and worked as a project manager. Nuno joined The University of Manchester in 2002, after earning a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of California at Berkeley; he moved to the now Alliance Manchester Business School in 2004.

Mr. Kamesh Rao is currently the CEO of GMR Airport Developers Limited. He has over 40 years of rich and varied experience in the field of Infrastructure and Construction Management across the globe, managing projects varying from Luxury hotels, Universities, Car plants, Hydro power station, Roads and now Airports.

He has been with the GMR Group for over 16 years, since 2004 and was responsible for the delivery of the Passenger Terminal and ATC tower at Hyderabad International Airport, India’s first Greenfield Airport to be built under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative and has since supported the Delhi, Istanbul, Mactan Cebu and Goa airport projects.

Prior to joining the GMR Group he was the Country Manager for Oberoi McAlpine India Ltd. having previously worked with Trafalgar House & Balfour Beatty. Over the last 40 years he has been involved with infrastructure mega-projects in the Middle-East, Europe and South East Asia apart from India.

He holds a Masters’ Degree in Structural Engineering and Bachelors’ Degree in Civil Engineering from I.I.T. Madras, India. An avid sportsman during his college days, he represented IIT Madras in volleyball, and continues to retain a keen interest in all sports.

On the family front he is married to Vijaya and they are blessed with two children Anirudh and Vidya.

Prof V T Chandra Sekhar Rao is Dean, L&T Institute of Project Management (IPM). He is responsible for running Vadodara and Chennai Campuses of IPM, including new program design and delivery. In his 38 years of professional experience, Mr Rao executed large FEED, EPC and EPC(m) projects related to Oil and Gas, Refining, Power, Steel and Industrial sectors and provided guidance to several project managers, engineering managers and construction managers.

Mr. Rao started his project professional career with design engineering initially and later moved to project management of large capital projects. Prior to joining L&T IPM, he has founded Shreshta Solutions LLP, with a mission is to impart and instill project management best practices and competencies in Engineering and Construction Industry through learning interventions, coaching and consultancy. He held various senior management/ project management positions in Indian operations of large multinationals such as Voest Alpine, Fluor and Amec Foster Wheeler. During his tenure in these companies, he handled Engineering, Procurement and Construction management of large multi-discipline, multi-location, and multi- billion dollar projects in US, Canada, Australia, India, Middle-east, Nigeria and UK. His worked with Fortune 100 clients like ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Saudi Aramco, Woodside group and Indian Oil.

Mr. Rao is a postgraduate in Civil Engineering, with rich experience in program and project implementation with core strength in engineering management, project management, risk management, Contract and Claims management and operations management. Mr. Rao also spoke at several national conferences, PMI Conferences, and conducted many training sessions and workshops on the best practices of project management for Owner as well as Contracting Companies. He is also certified CEO Coach from Coaching Federation of India and has been involved in Executive Coaching of senior executives of IT and Construction Industries. He held the position of Chairman of Forum Advisory Committee for Engineering and Construction Forum – a joint initiative by PMI Chennai, IIT Madras and the Industry. He is also a member of PMI India’s Academic Advisory Group. He is certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) from PMI. He is also Fellow of Royal Institute of Charter Surveyors (FRICS), Institute of Directors (FIOD) and Institute of Engineers (FIE).

Mr. Rao strongly believes in Industry oriented research by academia which in due course translates into best practices to be followed by Industry and used many of such research recommendations by Construction Industry Institute, USA (In University of Texas, Austin), in capital projects.

Mr. Rao’s passion for teaching started initially teaching undergraduate courses in Civil Engineering. It continued with his adjunct faculty role at BIT on advanced topics like Finite Element Analysis and sustained it throughout professional career through training, guiding and coaching of project managers, engineering managers and construction managers throughout professional career including his recent stint as an adjunct faculty and subject matter expert at International Institute of Learning (IIL).

Mr. Datta graduated from The University of Waterloo (Canada) with Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering. He is the President & Head of RPMG (Reliance Project Management Group) in Reliance. Prior to joining Reliance, he was working for Fluor Corp as Sr. VP Project Director and before that he was with Bechtel Corp. Majority of his career has been in EPC industry working in multi-cultural environment in extreme weather conditions on four continents.

Dr. Shobha Ramalingam is Associate Professor at National Institute of Construction Management and Research (NICMAR), Pune. She has around twenty years of experience in the industry and academics. Post her graduation as an Architect from NIT Trichy, she obtained her Master’s and Ph.D in Construction Management from IIT Madras and specializes in the areas of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Lean construction management. She was the Head of the Contemporary Smart City Development and Management (CSCDM) Program at NICMAR from 2018 to 2020. She has presented and published several papers in national / international conferences and journals.

Mr. Salgaonkar has 40 years of diversified experience in all facets of infrastructure development including planning, design, construction, financing and operations management. He has successfully managed several multibillion-dollar, complex, infrastructure programs including Airports, Smart Cities, Industrial Corridors, Deep Tunnels and Water/Wastewater systems around the world. He has held executive and management positions advising public and private sector clients in the USA, UK, UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong and India.

Jagdish has a double master’s degree in Civil Engineering (Mumbai) and Environmental Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. He did his MBA from University of South Florida, USA. He started his professional career in the USA as a design engineer and quickly moved up to be a successful Regional Manager, Chief Operating Officer and Portfolio / Program Director. In his last assignment, he served as Senior Vice President for AECOM, a multidisciplinary, international consulting firm, where he headed the Program Management Division for mega infrastructure projects including Smart Cities in India

Jagdish has led many iconic programs collectively valued at over USD 100 Billion. Some of them are India’s first Greenfield, Smart Industrial City, Dholera SIR in Gujarat; Mumbai International Airport (Terminal 2) Expansion; London Thames River Tunnels; New City of Masdar in Abu Dhabi and the Orange County, USA, Wastewater Recycling Program. Several of his projects have won international acclaim. Dholera’s planning and design has been recognized with awards for “Best Integrated Planning”, “Best Green City” and “Best Geospatial Technology in Urban Planning”. Dholera is one of the first Cities in the world to be awarded the “Platinum” rating by the Green Building Council. He has also been recognized with the President’s Award for his pioneering work in sustainable development by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, USA.

Jagdish is a registered Professional Civil Engineer (P.E.) in USA; Board-Certified specialist by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers (AAEE) and certified Project Management Professional (PMP) by the Project Management Institute (PMI), USA. He is the founding member of the steering committee setup to create a National Project/Program Management Policy Framework for India under the auspices of Niti Aayog and a contributing author for the Infrastructure Body of Knowledge (InBoK) for Project/Program Management in India.

Jagdish is a recognized expert and public speaker with over three dozen publications and presentations to his credit. He is highly regarded and sought for his expertise in providing program conceptualization, strategic advisory, policy initiatives and auditing related to programs.

Tharun Dolla is a research associate in Department of Civil Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India. He holds a Doctorate in Infrastructure Engineering and Management from IIT Guwahati. He worked in various research assignments and projects including funding agencies such as Human Settlement Management Institute, HUDCO, New Delhi. His research interests include infrastructure delivery models, infrastructure sustainability, governance and smart cities. He is a member of American Society of Civil Engineers, Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) UK, and Indian Roads Congress.

Boeing Laishram is a Professor of Infrastructure Engineering and Management in Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He has been associated with both execution of infrastructure projects and financial structuring of infrastructure projects from his experience working with both construction organisation and investment bank in India. His areas of research interests include PPPs, public procurement, sustainable development, BIM and smart cities, and project planning and control.

Ganesh Devkar is an Associate Professor of Construction Management at the Faculty of Technology at the CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India. He holds a Doctorate in Construction Management from Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). His doctoral work focuses on competencies in urban local bodies for implementing water, sanitation, and solid waste management public private partnership (PPP) projects in India. During his doctoral research work, he was involved in research projects for Tamil Nadu Urban Development Fund; Ministry of Urban Development; and Institute of Water Policy, National University of Singapore. Ganesh teaches construction quality and safety management, project appraisal, lean construction and public private partnerships. He has been researching in the area of public private partnerships, lean construction and megaprojects. He has participated in four systematic reviews focusing on delivery of infrastructure like water supply, sanitation, hygiene, telecom, electricity and transport. He received the “Young Research Scholar Award” from Project Management Institute, India in 2014.

Nicola Thounaojam is a current PhD candidate in Department of Civil Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India. She holds a master in Construction Engineering and Management from CEPT University, Ahmedabad. Her research interests include sustainability assessment in PPP, sustainable infrastructure rating systems and sustainability in mega infrastructure projects. She is a member of American Society of Civil Engineers.

Currently a lecturer in industrial management at Åbo Akademi University (Finland). Research interest is identifying and removing lock-ins for profitable industrial and infrastructure investments. Several years of work experience in auditing and equity analysis.

Dr Zaidi possesses Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry with several papers in scientific journals, a Master degree in Public Administration(MPA) from Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Finance from Indian Institute of Finance.

Dr Zaidi is a long time civil servant of the IAS from 1976 batch. During his career, he has served in increasingly responsible positions at the state of UP and GOI levels. At the state level, he has handled portfolios like Agriculture, Rural Development, Surface Transport, Urban development and municipal bodies besides regulatory positions at the district and commissionerate levels.

At the GOI levels, he contributed richly to civil aviation sector for over a decade continuously and superannuated in 2012 as Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation. He has worked as the Permanent Representative of India at the ICAO Council, a specialized UN agency dealing with international aviation. At ICAO level, he acted as chairman of the Administration Commission in the global General Assembly of 191 states in 2010, a rare distinction for India. He also held position of Joint Secretary in civil aviation led the projects of restructuring of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports at the government level, Chairman, Airport Authority and the Director General Civil Aviation handling regulatory responsibilities of aviation safety and security standards, continuity and efficiency of air transport and ATM services.

Amongst several contributions in civil aviation, he formulated a Financial Restructuring and Turn Around Plan of Air India in 2012, initiatives such as setting up of Independent Air Accident Investigation Bureau and National Aviation University and investment in airport infrastructure. He was actively associated with the setting up of Greenfield airport Hyderabad and Bengaluru and privatization of Delhi and Mumbai airport including drafting of Concession Agreements, the first in the country for PPP airports and formulation of Airport Economic Regulatory framework including flow of huge investment in setting up world class airports.

Dr Zaidi served as 20th Chief Election Commissioner of India from 2015 to 2017 after earlier working as Election Commissioner from 2012 to 2015. As a constitutional authority, he conducted free and fair election in the country to state assemblies and was associated with Parliament election in 2014. He brought about several institutional reforms at ECI including introduction of digital technology in several areas such as inclusive voter registration, election monitoring and 100% use of VVPAT with EVMs.