Prof. K.R. Chari is a multi-faceted management guru and academic. He is a recipient of the ‘National Productivity Champion-2021 for India’ award instituted by the Asian Productivity Origination (APO), Tokyo.

Prof. Chari worked with the National Productivity Council of India in various capacities, starting as an Industrial Engineer, and rising to the level of a Regional Director. In 2009, he joined academics as a Professor of Operations Management at the Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), Greater Noida, India, and left the institution in 2021 while functioning as the Dean of student welfare.

He has provided expert services to hundreds of organizations and has trained thousands of professionals over the past five decades. His services in the industrial sector in India have helped a large number of organizations in enhancing productivity. Prof. Chari’s name is closely associated with the Value Engineering efforts across the country. He has done assignments for the United Nations Environment Program, including the preparation of a ‘Compendium of Recycling and Destruction Technologies for Waste Oils’. The compendium overviewed the state of oil usage and waste oil management in selected countries. It provides a guide for assessing appropriate technologies closely connected with local community needs.

During his stay in NPC and BIMTECH, he has made significant contributions in the area of waste recycling and circular economy, and worked passionately in bulk industrial waste recycling. He has been instrumental in developing innovative applications for various bulk wastes such as rice husk ash, waste oils and lubricants, marble dust and waste agricultural biomass.