about
us
Organization
Promoters and Directors: Muskotia Retreat is a dream of many years of Gaggan and
Rukmini Anand.
Gaggan is a Management Graduate who has worked in the financial services industry
for over 22 years. He took a mid-career break to do an Advance Management program
at the University of Oxford, Said Business School, London. Gaggan has worked with
premier financial organisations like ITC, ICICI and HDFC group. He was always a
Naturalist and Conservator at heart. In his zeal to do something innovative and
challenging, he left the corporate world and decided to devote his time to his land
at Nainital and bring this project into being.
Rukmini is a housewife. She has artistic interests and pursues painting, classical music and literature. She believes that each place stands for its own culture and the same should be nurtured to bring out the best. Sustainability and using local flora in a wildscape setting is close to her heart while building Muskotia retreat. Gaggan and Rukmini have been married for 18 years and have two kids.
Other Team Members
Hemani Sood: CFO and Advisor
Hemani is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has worked with organisations like
Deloitte, Airtel and HDFC. She has a working experience of more than 10 years in
diverse fields like audit, treasury, business planning and project management. She
is a firm believer of systems, processes, controls and technology. Hemani has had
an illustrious career. Apart from a vast exposure in a short span of time, she has
worked on special industry transformation projects with Mckinsey and the Boston
Consulting Group. Apart from her contribution to strategy she also handles the finance
and legal portfolio at Muskotia Retreat Company.
Pooja Kaintura: Landscapist and Environment planner
Pooja is a Post Graduate in Floriculture and Landscaping from Dr. Y.S. Parmar University
of Horticulture and Forestry. She is also currently pursuing her Doctoral degree,
with her subject of research being mutation breeding in Tuberose. She has an overwhelming
passion for plants and has attended many National and International workshops, conferences
and seminars. Having published several research papers and popular articles on various
aspects of ornamental plants, she is now committed to Muskotia where she has the
opportunity to put most of her learning into practice. She is a life member of the
Ornamental Society of India, a scientific body devoted for promotion of Scientific
Knowledge in the field of Floriculture and Landscaping.
She is an emerging landscaper. Her broad interests are in the field of Himalayan biodiversity in terms of Flora, particularly wild ornamental, Plant taxonomy, genetic and plant breeding.
At Muskotia, Pooja imparts her scientific knowledge of horticulture and floriculture to create wildscape landscaping settings at the site. Along with her team, she works hard to collect and propagate local flora and plants using sustainable techniques. She is also actively involved in site development, rain water harvesting, assisting the creation of open butterfly parks and exploring various techniques of sustainable construction.
Subedar Major (Retd) Gabar Singh Aswal: Site Manager
Gabar is a retired army officer with over 30 years of service in the Indian army.
Gabar is a Graduate and has completed his Junior Leader Course and Security Supervisor
Course with top grades. He is also a qualified Combat Engineer and Unit Education
Instructor from the Indian Army. He is from Bengal engineers. Gabar has a meritorious
service record and has been part of UN Mission Congo 2005, Nuclear Blast Pokhran
and counter terrorism operations in J&K. Gabar is highly skilled and specialises
in planning, control, liasoning and executing planned objectives.
Gabar’s key responsibilities include site administration, security and construction
trouble shooting. He is passionate about executing engineering projects.
development, rain water harvesting, assisting the creation of open butterfly parks
and exploring various techniques of sustainable construction.
