[WEBCAST] Green India. Getting it right.

Michelle commenced her role as Commissioner to South Asia for the Victorian government based in Bangalore in September 2017. Immediately prior to this, Michelle managed the global network of offices and the Business and Skilled Migration program for the State Government of Queensland, Australia.

Michelle’s trade and investment career highlights have been around international investment in infrastructure and renewable energy, and also growing and deepening Australia’s education relationship in Spain, Italy and ASEAN region.

Michelle’s early career was in classical music management with Sydney Symphony and Queensland Symphony Orchestras throughout the 1990s. Until her departure for Bangalore, Michelle was on the board of Musica Viva Australia, one of Australia’s major performing arts organisations and Australia’s leading provider of music education into Australian schools.

Michelle has a Bachelor of Arts from University of Queensland and Postgraduate qualifications in Applied Law (UQ) and Business Communications (QUT) and speaks Spanish and Italian.

Michelle is married with three teenage children. She grew up in the small town of Woolgoolga, home to Australia’s first Sikh community.

Earlier, since 2015, Manoj Kohli was the Executive Chairman of the SB Energy – SoftBank Group, which plans to develop 20GW renewable energy projects in India and is already developing over 5GW of solar and wind projects.

Manoj was also the Managing Director, Bharti Enterprises Limited and responsible for the growth and operations of the Bharti group of companies in retail, insurance, agri-products, real estate, mobile internet sector. Manoj's key contribution has been building Airtel as no 3 telco in the world with over 360m customers. He led Bharti Airtel’s India operations during which the customer base grew from 2 million to 150 million before moving to International responsibility in 2010. Manoj was the Chairman of the Industry Association, COAI which deals with Government resolving all regulatory policy matters. He was the Managing Director and CEO (International), Bharti Airtel, as he headed the International Business Group which leads the international strategy & vision for 20 countries and was also responsible for leading the Africa operations which Bharti Airtel acquired in June 2010.

Manoj started his career in 1979 with the DCM Shriram Group, where he initially led the HR function, followed by leadership positions in the Foods, Chemicals and Fertilizer businesses and assignments in Engineering projects, including Shriram Honda. He left as Vice President, responsible for the Air Conditioning & Refrigeration business unit (Tecumseh & Daikin) after a stint of 15 years. He subsequently worked for 15 years at AlliedSignal / Honeywell as its Executive Director in charge of its new Industrial Park and operations in India. Manoj then joined Escotel, which he led for over 5 years as Executive Director and CEO, before coming on board at Bharti Airtel.

Overall his 40 years of work experience is divided between the manufacturing and telecom sectors. Manoj has worked closely with MNCs as well as worked at Michigan, Austria, Tokyo, Shanghai, Manila, Singapore, HK and supervised 20 countries in Africa in addition to all four regions in India.

He has been Australia’s High Commissioner to India, served at the Australian Embassy in Washington working on the Australia-US Alliance and been Australia’s Senior Official for APEC.  He has led Australia’s consular support for Australians overseas, media and parliamentary engagement for the Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio, and overseen comprehensive incoming government briefing for two Foreign Ministers and Australia’s Trade Minister.

Mr Suckling was most recently Australia’s Ambas­­­­sador for the Environment, leading on Paris Agreement negotiations, strategy for Australia’s $1 billion climate finance commitment and bilateral cooperation on climate change with key countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.  This included chairing the influential Umbrella Group of developed countries - including the United States, Russia, Japan and Canada - in UNFCCC negotiations for four years.  He is currently a Senior Partner at Pollination, a specialist climate advisory and investment firm.