Shék Jain is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the chairman of Pura Terra Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on conserving and protecting the Earth’s resources and indigenous people, using a nonpartisan, data-driven approach. Through Pura Terra, he is engaged in various environmental projects in India. Jain additionally serves on the investment committee of Arise Ventures, a Bangalore-based venture capital firm. He previously was the chief operating officer for the BioUrja Group, a global biofuel, agricultural, and energy commodities supply and trading company.     

Jain received his juris doctor from the University of Maryland and his undergraduate degree from Towson University. He practiced law with the US Environmental Protection Agency and the law firms of Jones Jain, Holland & Knight, and Jones Day. As an attorney, he routinely was engaged with Indian policy and regulatory issues, including serving as the co-chair of the international legal team retained by the government of India to prepare a draft of the Information Technology Act, which was passed into law in 2000. He also advised on draft regulations for the environmental remediation of Dal Lake in Kashmir. Jain served as outside general counsel for the Embassy of India during the mid-1990s and frequently wrote about Indian policy and regulatory issues at that time.