Meet Sunil Rana, Founder and CEO at AI Powered Analytics Platform: Vyzrd

The genesis of Vyzrd lies in my experiences and observations from my time in management consulting, and my work in sustainability and business analytics. We wanted to solve two critical problems – simultaneously. First, how do you help executives cut across functions and approach decision-making with greater clarity, calibration, and speed amid ‘siloed’ information overload?

This is a challenge today due to too many/too few metrics, poor data quality, limited budget and resources and time constraints, among other things. Second, how can we reimagine ESG integration such that it transitions from a ‘check-list centric’ marketing exercise towards becoming a real lever for value creation and change? In doing this together, we are focused on enabling stakeholders to achieve ‘calibrated sustainability’ – economic, social and environmental.

What is your background – how did you arrive at the idea to found Vyzrd, and what has your path been?

 
Before founding Vyzrd, I was a Partner at Mercer and BCG where I led and established multiple new businesses and solution offerings. Post MBA, I started my career in management consulting at Oliver Wyman and have also worked with a number of start-ups.

Over the last decade, my work has focused on advising boards and public sector leadership on issues ranging from business transformation to policy design. My corporate journey has offered me deep insights into building successful business ecosystems, and working with start-ups offered me a vital opportunity: In a sense, I was able to “live” the entrepreneur life many times prior to launching Vyzrd. This has been invaluable in guiding my day-to-day decisions at Vyzrd.

How does Vyzrd work – how does it utilise AI, how does it assess ESG risk, and how does it produce its analytical reports?

Using AI, Vyzrd works by integrating an unparalleled array of organisational, financial and ESG attributes into its algorithms, which provide actionable insights into business performance, risk and sustainability issues.

Vyzrd integrates ESG considerations into the business across hundreds of key attributes. In short, it demonstrates why it is so important for businesses to put ESG at the centre of their strategies: It delivers positive social and environmental impact, while driving business success.

We believe this creates the most compelling rationale for ‘true ESG’ adoption for driving social, environmental and business impact- simultaneously benefiting all the stakeholders in the process.

You’re passionate on the subject of greenwashing. Why do you think this issue is of such importance, and how will Vyzrd affect how we view greenwashing? 

Greenwashing is a critical issue in sustainable investing today for two reasons: 

1.       A significant proportion of investors are financially exposed (and unethically misled) owing to the inherent risk from the mis-categorisation of their investment as green

2.       Trillions of dollars’ worth of investment is inaccurately rated as green investment. This means large capital is tied up in initiatives that are fundamentally not contributing to the sustainability goals.

One of the key levers to reducing greenwashing is ESG ‘data assurance’ – materiality, collection, analysis, reliability and interpretation. Vyzrd fundamentally transforms the way stakeholders can build and access this capability at unparalleled scale, speed and cost.

What does the future hold for Vyzrd – what does the evolution of Vyzrd look like?

Vyzrd is changing the way businesses approach ESG, and in so doing, changing perceptions of ESG itself as a key driver of business growth as well as sustainability.

Our goal is to partner with all key stakeholders from businesses to governments to regulators – everyone interested in driving real progress on sustainability through a combination of business impact, policy design and risk management. Vyzrd provides the framework, the solutions, and the scale to get there.