Commodore Sujeet Samaddar is graduated from IIT Roorkee (B.E) in 1978. Samaddar began his career as an Engineer Trainee with Tata Consulting Engineers, Mumbai. Commissioned into the Indian Navy in 1980, Samaddar held various staff, four command appointments and retired in 2009 as Principal Director Naval Plans.

He was awarded the Admiral RD Katari Fellowship at the United Services Institution, New Delhi on “Defence Development and national Security: Linkages in the Indian Context which was published by Gyan Books in 2005. He also published a monograph on “Minerals, Markets and Maritime Strategy” exploring the role that critical materials would play in the future and the report was published in 2009.

Post retirement he has served as Vice President Operations, NOVA Integrated Systems, a TATA Enterprise and Director and CEO of ShinMaywa Industries India Private Limited. Samaddar was Senior Consultant (Industry), NITI Aayog, Government of India until January 2019. He drafted the National Maritime Policy and the National Material Recycling Policy and was involved in the FDI policy for the aerospace and defence sector, small arms manufacturing, regional transport aircraft program amongst other industry issues.

He has contributed several articles in trade journals and as chapters in various edited books and has been on the panel as Chair and speaker on various international conferences in India and abroad. His present interests include:-

• Maritime Policy
• Maritime History
• Shipbuilding
• Circular Economy and Sustainable resource utilisation
• Green Hydrogen and derivatives
• Space technology for developmental applications

At RIS he has:

• Presented a paper on “A Strategy for Shipbuilding”
• Joined in India-Indonesia Partnering Conference
• RIS Discussion Paper # 297 : “Sittwe in Myanmar – Partnering for Clean and Green Energy”.
• Policy Brief # 114: Myanmar-India Partnership for Clean and Green Energy