The Giving Is In The Work | Shruti Deorah, Founding Executive Director, India Energy and Climate Center

India is in the middle of one of the largest energy transitions in human history. Who shapes it, and how, will have consequences that stretch well beyond the country. On this episode of Unusual Suspects, host Gaurav Choudhury speaks with Shruti Deorah, Founding Executive Director of the India Energy and Climate Center at UC Berkeley, to understand how philanthropy can play a role in getting that transition right.
Shruti's path to this work is anything but accidental. An electrical engineer from IIT Bombay, she has spent her career moving between institutions—the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, the Observer Research Foundation, the Clinton Climate Initiative, each step a deliberate choice to build public goods. In 2021, she and her husband formalized a personal philanthropy practice focused on education, climate, and gender equity. In this episode, Shruti traces that journey and makes the case that what the diaspora has to offer goes well beyond funding—into expertise, institutional access, and the willingness to stay with problems that won't resolve within neat timelines.