Ranjit Barthakur

Barthakur was born on 8 August 1954 in Jorhat, Assam. He is married to Radhika Barthakur, who is also a founding member of the Balipara Foundation.

Barthakur has worked across information technology, hospitality, consumer goods and sport. He is executive chairman of Royal Multisport Private Limited, the company that owns the Indian Premier League cricket franchise Rajasthan Royals, and has held board positions at Max Healthcare, the Anand Group and Indian telecommunications companies. He was appointed an adviser on strategy and investment to the Government of Assam in 2001 and again in 2011.

He founded the Balipara Foundation in 2007, together with Radhika Barthakur and the co-founder Prabir Banerjea. The organisation began with a focus on Asian elephant conservation and broadened into landscape restoration and biodiversity work across the Eastern Himalayan region. The foundation reported 1.2 million trees planted across 1,200 hectares by 2019, and 6.72 million trees across 5,537.5 hectares by 2024, with about 36,000 people benefiting directly.

Under Barthakur the foundation runs the Eastern Himalayan Naturenomics Forum, an annual gathering on regenerative economies and climate resilience, and since 2013 has presented the Balipara Foundation Awards to conservation practitioners in the region.

He has also served as a senior adviser to the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust's north-east programmes, as a trustee of the Tata Eastern Medical Trust, as an advisory board member of the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Guwahati, and on the advisory council of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE).[2][3][4][5]