Dr. Runa Sarkar is a professor with the Economics Group and Coordinator, Centre for Development and Environment Policy. She served as a faculty member on the Board of Governors at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta until April 2023, and has also been Dean (Academic) and Chairperson (PGPEX) at IIMC. Prior to this, she taught at IIT Kanpur.

A chemical engineer from BITS Pilani, she pursued her Masters in environmental engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. After spending five years as an environmental consultant in a subsidiary of Tata Steel, she completed her doctoral studies from IIM Calcutta.

Her interests lie in sustainable development where business interests are in consonance with environmental and social interests. She has authored and edited several books, reports, and journal papers in the area of business, environment and institutions, and is currently engaged with research in the area of energy transitions.

She has been a sustainability assessor for CII and is a jury member for the Excellence in Sustainability Steelie Awards by the World Steel Association. She is on the board of Basix Consulting and Technology Services and Bandhan Financial Holdings Limited, a member of the CII Net Zero Council, and the Advisory Committee for Center for Sustainable Finance (Climate
Policy Initiative).