SANJAY BALIGA
Co-Founder and Senior Partner
Sanjay Baliga, a globally-recognized expert in sustainable business and corporate risk management, has nearly a quarter century of professional experience working at the interface of sustainability-related science, management and policy.
Baliga is a Co-Founder and Senior Partner at Vichara Partners, a global advisory group. He provides expert advice to individual companies, groups of companies, and entire industries looking to become more effective, efficient, profitable and ultimately, more sustainable. His advice is strategic in nature and designed to address fundamental, global challenges affecting companies, their upstream supply chains and their downstream customers.
Baliga's areas of technical expertise include:
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Environmental Management
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Occupational Health & Safety
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Regulatory Compliance
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Product Stewardship
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Energy Conservation
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Ecosystem & Health Risk Assessments
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Green House Gas Reduction
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Climate Change Mitigation
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Cost/Benefit Analyses
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Global Stakeholder Engagement
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Social Responsibility
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Organizational Management
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Capacity Building
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Business Development
Before founding Vichara Partners, Baliga was the Director of Sustainable Manufacturing at the global industry association, SEMI. As the leader of the Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) Division at SEMI Global Headquarters, Baliga led the EHS efforts for SEMI's eight regional offices as well as for the following SEMI-affiliated industry associations: the Fab Owners Alliance (FOA), the FlexTech Alliance, the MEMS and Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), the Electronic System Design Alliance (ESD Alliance), and the PV Group.
At the time of his departure in 2018, SEMI and its affiliated partner associations represented more than 2,000 member companies located around the world. For over a decade, Baliga worked extensively with these companies who are all involved in manufacturing high technology devices. His expertise helped the manufacturers of semiconductors, microelectronics, nanoelectronics, photovoltaics, solid state lights, flexible and hybrid electronics, sensors, MEMS, and related high tech components become more sustainable.
In addition, Baliga worked closely with companies that are part of the extended supply chains of these manufacturers to improve their environmental performance and business operations as well as with downstream customers to address manufacturing related issues. His work included every stakeholder in the high tech manufacturing supply chain from materials suppliers, facilities services suppliers, industrial machinery and equipment suppliers and electronic design services suppliers to downstream customers in the electronics, automotive, aerospace, renewable energy, defense and medical industries.
Baliga's deep knowledge of these high tech industries and his skill at bringing together stakeholders to find solutions to industry-wide problems has brought tremendous value to SEMI members worldwide. In his eleven years of service to SEMI members, Baliga coordinated dozens of member-driven committees, led thousands of working group meetings, and created hundreds of programs for trade shows, executive conferences and online webinars. A world-renowned speaker, Baliga frequently speaks at industry events across the globe. He regularly interacted with and submitted industry-wide feedback to government officials in dozens of countries as well as the United Nations on behalf of high tech manufacturing industries.
From 2009 to 2017, Baliga served on the National Board of Directors of SESHA, a professional society providing educational and networking opportunities to EHS professionals in the high tech industry.
Prior to coming to SEMI in 2007, Baliga was founding principal at Baliga Sustainable Consulting where he provided regulatory, scientific, and technical consulting services to a wide variety of chemical industry companies, trade associations and research councils.
He also held positions at the Yale University School of Environmental Studies, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the World Resources Institute where his worked focused on public policy issues in sustainable development. His research, evaluation and analysis resulted in a better understanding of the complicated factors underlying sustainability and the efforts needed to make the world a better place.
Baliga holds multiple degrees from Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and Yale University in a number of academic fields including: biology, economic development, public health, forestry and environmental management.