Puvan Selvanathan, Founder

Puvan founded Equator Society to put the communities most exposed to supply chains and climate change in control of the data collected about them. He is a human rights and data rights adviser based in Kuala Lumpur, with more than two decades of work across agribusiness, international development and supply chain technology. His expertise is ESG, sustainability, and geopolitical risk analysis and management.

He served as a United Nations Independent Expert on the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights from 2011 to 2015, and left in December 2015 calling for a binding international treaty on business and human rights. Earlier he was Group Chief Sustainability Officer at Sime Darby, one of the world's largest palm oil producers, and at the UN Global Compact he led the creation of the Food and Agriculture Business Principles.

Alongside Equator Society, Puvan founded Bluenumber, a platform for worker-owned data and digital rights, and is Co-Founder of Mimak, which gives workers a direct and continuous channel to report conditions for human rights due diligence. An architect by training, he holds an MBA and a DBA.