Amit Kumar, Head – Market Operations and New Product Initiatives, IEX, has close to two decades of experience across software development, product management, operations, and supply chain management roles in companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Infosys and Lime Road. At IEX, he currently leads operations pertaining to membership, surveillance, delivery and clearing settlement. He is also responsible for launching new products and exploring new market segments to enable market participants to fulfil their short-term power trading needs in the most intuitive and most cost optimum manner. The power sector is going through a transformation phase with a focus on clean energy and energy storage solutions, which provides an opportunity to launch innovative products and technology solutions. He believes that financial year 2020-21 is a milestone year for the Indian power sector, with the launch of real-time and green term-ahead markets. “The RTM has received an excellent response. This shows that discoms, gencos and open access consumers see great value in the RTM. For discoms, the RTM offers a way to reduce DSM penalties while for gencos, it allows them to sell their surplus power through a market-based mechanism, leading to more efficient utilisation of resources,” he says. “We are now one step closer to the launch of electricity contracts with a delivery period of up to one year on the exchange, following the Ministry of Power’s note on electricity derivatives and forward contracts. The launch of new market segments will bring significant benefits such as increased options and greater flexibility for market participants,” says Kumar. Besides, there is a need for policy intervention, technology-led transformation, and new products for the market to improve the health of the power sector.
Kumar’s management style focuses on customer centricity and building a high-caliber team, principles he imbibed from business leaders in his current and previous jobs. He has a personal goal to set up a chain of schools for providing affordable and quality education in rural areas. Kumar likes to spend his spare time with family, especially playing with his son and helping him with homework. He enjoys listening to ghazals and old film songs. He likes reading books on business and leadership, Transforming Nokia – The Power of Paranoid Optimism to Lead Through Colossal Change, being his most recent and insightful read.