Past Presidents

Subir Raha, former CMD ONGC and former Chairman ONGC Group of Companies left for heavenly abode on 01 February, 2010.

Subir Raha, born on August 28, 1948, graduated in Electronics & Tele-communication Engineering from Jadavpur University in 1969. He was also an alumnus of the Administrative Staff College at Henley of Leeds University, UK.

He joined Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd as Chairman & Managing Director in May 2001; and separated on completion of 5 years tenure in May 2006.

ONGC achieved multiple milestones during his tenure. ONGC’s market capitalization zoomed to become the highest among all Indian Corporate. He was personally instrumental in ONGC acquiring MRPL and turning it around from almost BIFR status to the present Mini-Ratna status. He also led ONGC into aggressive exploration, especially in the deep waters of India, and initiated IOR/ EOR projects to arrest the production decline of its mature fields.

He also led ONGC from a sectoral E&P company to become an Integrated Energy Major on global scale; acquiring many equity assets overseas. He also initiated the expansion of ONGC into various value integration projects in the field of Petrochemicals, SEZ, Power, clean coal energy, and alternate sources of energy.

Under his dynamic leadership, ONGC was the first Indian Corporate to sign the Integrity Pact with Transparency International (India) Ltd in April 2006. To further improve transparency in business transactions in ONGC, he introduced IT along the entire supply chain management of ONGC. Introduction of regular meeting with Vendors, Analysts, Investors even Employees were also unique initiatives of Mr. Raha. He branded ONGC from a Govt undertaking to a global oil and gas major through series of media interactions and branding activities.

He started his career with Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, as a Management Trainee in 1970.  After a series of field and staff assignments in various disciplines, he joined the Indian Oil Board as Director (Human Resources) in June 1998.

Before joining the IndianOil Board, he also served on deputation (1996-98) with the Government of India as the Head of the Oil Coordination Committee, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas.

Subir Raha is survived by his wife Mita, daughter Shuva and son Abhijit.

Mr. R. S. Sharma was on the Board of ONGC as the CMD from May 24, 2006, to January 31, 2011. Mr. Sharma has been credited to have brought in numerous business improvements in ONGC; leveraging strengths to build up its fortunes over the last few years. In these five years, he played an important role in providing value dimensions to ONGC’s business, which grew from less than 6 billion US dollars to around 20 billion US dollars. He was also on the Board of ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL), India’s biggest multinational, before taking over as Director (F) on the Board of Parent ONGC. Sharma played a pivotal role in the financial engineering of ONGC’s other subsidiary MRPL also, which was sick when ONGC acquired it. `In 2006-07, the ONGC board cleared investment proposals worth over Rs. 34,000 crores. Mr. R S Sharma is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Cost & Works Accountants of India and an Associate Member of the Indian Institute of Bankers. His run-up to this career peak commenced 35 years ago in 1972 with the Union Bank of India. After serving there in Credit Appraisal and related spheres for a decade, the banker relocated to Baghdad, to head the Finance function of another public enterprise The Indian Road Construction Company. The next six years in the construction company (four years in the Middle East) saw him pilot many important projects single-handedly before he joined ONGC in July 1988 as Joint Director (Finance), posted at Assam. Under his stewardship, ONGC was assigned Baa1 Credit Rating, the highest-ever Credit Rating assigned by Moody’s to any Indian Corporate. Several awards have come his way, in recognition to his individual contributions like the CNBC TV-18 CFO Award 2006 for excellence in Oil and Allied services category, India’s most recognized award for excellence in the financial field. He was also conferred with India CFO Award 2005, Excellence in Finance in PSU in December 2005, by International Market Assessment (IMA), in association with BNP Paribas, Sun Micro Systems, and CNBC TV-18.

Mr. Ajit Kumar Hazarika, a First class graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Assam Engineering College, Guwahati, joined ONGC as Graduate Trainee in 1976. Having more than three and half decades of varied experience in ONGC, Mr. Hazarika has vast knowledge of the entire gamut of oil and gas industry.

Mr. Hazarika joined the ONGC Board as Director (Onshore) in September 2004. He has been given the charge of the Chairman & Managing Director w.e.f. February 1, 2011, while he continues to be the Director (Onshore). The additional responsibilities of Shri Hazarika include the Chairmanship of ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL), Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) and six other ONGC Group companies (OPaL, OMPL, MSEZ, OTPC, OMEL and OTBL). Mr. Hazarika is also a Member of Governing Council of Petroleum Federation of India (Petrofed), Chairman of Working Group for UCG (Underground Coal Gasification) constituted by the office of Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India and Indian representative of Oil & Gas sub-committee of International M2M (Methane to Market) partnership under USEPA (United States Environment Protection Agency)- nominated by MoPNG.

Mr. Sudhir Vasudeva, former President, Global Compact Network India, served as the Chairman, Managing Director at Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited until February 28, 2014, and also served as Head of its Offshore Oil & Gas Fields.

Mr. Vasudeva, a Gold Medalist Chemical Engineer from National Institute of Technology, Raipur joined ONGC in 1976. He climbed the corporate ladder steadily and joined ONGC Board as Director (Offshore) in February, 2009 and finally took over as CMD in October, 2011. Credited with many path-breaking initiatives in complex offshore project management, he has been conferred with the coveted CEPM-PMA Fellowship on Project Management in December, 2011.

With immense experience on the larger canvas of oil and gas industry, Mr. Vasudeva was quite clear on his priority: pursuing energy security for the nation by accreting and acquiring new hydrocarbon reserves, improving production from brown fields and augmenting production through fast track development of newly discovered fields.

 Mr. Vasudeva also served as Chairman of Petrotech Society, Chairperson of SPE Indian Council as well as a Director At-large in SPE International Board of Directors, the first by any Indian. A passionate technical man Mr. Vasudeva was also associated with many other professional bodies.

 A strong proponent of pursuing alternate and renewable sources of energy, Mr. Vasudeva Chaired the ONGC Energy Centre Trust. A firm believer in transparency and ethical business practices, Mr. Vasudeva embraced the Ten Principles of United Nations Global Compact since the beginning of this initiative in India.