I'm Rishi Arora, a Chartered Accountant who found his real calling in classrooms, on stages and behind new ideas. For over a decade I have been teaching, writing and speaking about where finance meets AI, and mentoring the professionals who will carry the profession forward.
Classrooms, stages and boardrooms along the way
I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2012 the hard way: an evening-college education in Delhi funded by café shifts, event management and night shifts at US-based BPOs, with no coaching, ever. Corporate finance then brought me home to Jamshedpur, where I grew into leading Indirect Taxation at Tata Cummins. Those years gave me discipline. But the moment that changed my direction came in 2015, when I first stood in front of an ICAI classroom, and realised that explaining an idea clearly is a craft of its own.
Since then, teaching, writing and speaking have become the throughline of everything I do. I have delivered more than a hundred workshops, mentored over six hundred young professionals into the profession, co-authored an ICAI publication on AI and data governance, and built three ventures, mostly because I could not stop asking “what if this worked differently?” I believe the accountants who thrive next will be the ones who stay curious, and I want to be part of the reason they do.
Rishi AroraNot a straight line. From a Delhi café floor to boardrooms and ICAI classrooms, every turn taught me something the next chapter needed.
I grew up in a joint family in Jamshedpur, an ordinary student until class seven, in a generation that saved its applause for science students. I chose commerce anyway, and decided early that whatever I built, I would build myself.
I left home with an evening-college admission, chosen deliberately so my days stayed free to earn, and cleared the CA entrance with an all-India rank. The plan was simple: fund my own education, whatever it took.
Cleaning tables at a Café Coffee Day. Event management, growing from promoter to the coordinator who brought other students their first paying work. Night shifts at US-based BPOs for ₹13,000 a month, where demanding customers taught me a patience no classroom could.
No coaching, ever. I studied between shifts, with friends in articleship as my only faculty. Because I refused to stop earning, the exams took longer, and I own every attempt.
My first job, with Indian Steel & Wire Products, a Tata enterprise, brought me back to Jamshedpur. I grew into leading Indirect Taxation at Tata Cummins, learning how finance really runs inside a large manufacturer, and stayed until my responsibilities at home were complete before betting on myself.
I joined ICAI as faculty and discovered the work I never want to stop doing. A hundred-plus workshops later, teaching is still the part of my week I protect first.
ZARK & Co. LLP, InfiBooks and InfiAI Edge each began as a “what if” I could not let go of, and building them taught me more about people, patience and systems than any textbook could.
Co-authoring the ICAI publication on AI and the DPDP era, and joining the CII panel on Smart & Connected Manufacturing alongside leaders from Tata Steel and Fleetguard Filters, took the classroom conversation to the profession at large.
More writing, more stages, more mentees, and an open mind about where curiosity points next.
The ideas I keep returning to in my writing, workshops and talks, practically, honestly and without the hype.
The risk to the profession is not the technology, it is professionals who stop learning. I teach AI as a set of practical tools to be understood and questioned, not feared or worshipped.
In the DPDP era, how a professional handles data is inseparable from how they handle trust. This conviction is at the heart of the ICAI publication I co-authored on AI and data protection.
Every classroom question sharpens my own thinking. Mentoring six hundred professionals has taught me at least as much as it has taught them, and that exchange is the point.
AI will not take your job. A person who never stopped learning will.
Numbers tell you what happened. Curiosity asks why.
Either we become Chartered Accountants, or we are nothing.
Teach what you know, and you will finally understand it.
Nobody is self-made. People carry you on their shoulders, and that is how you rise.
Your twenties are for compounding: money, skills and reputation.
I build because it is how I learn. Each venture began as a question I could not stop asking, and each one has shaped how I think, teach and write.
A chartered accountancy practice that doubles as a training ground, where young CAs learn global accounting, automation and disciplined delivery from day one.
An experiment in rebuilding finance delivery around technology rather than headcount, and a daily reminder that simplicity is the hardest thing to engineer.
My playground for AI automation, where the ideas I speak and write about get tested against reality before they ever reach a stage or a classroom.
From ICAI classrooms to CII industry panels, I speak about the place where finance meets AI, practically, honestly and without the hype.
Recognised by ICAI for co-authoring the guide to responsible data governance for Chartered Accountants.
100+ workshops and seminars delivered, 600+ accountants trained and mentored into the profession.
CII panel on Smart & Connected Manufacturing, on where AI genuinely pays off, alongside leaders from Tata Steel and Fleetguard Filters.
A decade of teaching leaves you with a shelf: forty-nine topics across seven tracks, from GST and the Union Budget to AI adoption, data protection and cross-border business, each backed by original decks, case studies and quizzes refined session by session since 2015.
Every topic is a real, delivered session, with decks, case studies, practice files and quiz banks. Most can be shaped into a keynote, a half-day workshop or a full programme.
Bring one to your team →Entity choice, tax, banking and go-to-market for the Indian business selling into America, in the order the questions actually come up.
What a US founder needs before the first rupee: structure, compliance, partners and the mistakes that cost a year.
Reading trade headlines as a business owner: what changes, what to hedge and what to ignore.
Permanent establishment, transfer pricing basics, withholding and getting paid across borders without surprises.
Pricing in dollars, managing currency, export documentation and the finance stack for a first overseas order.
Global Capability Centres are reshaping Indian services; here is where the SME opportunity sits.
Hiring, workflows, data security and review loops for teams serving clients across time zones.
The global accounting and advisory opportunity, and how Indian professionals can claim their share of it.
How Indian talent and global work find each other: remote teams, secondments and the new career map.
Plain-language AI for the owner-operator: what to automate first, what to leave alone, and what it really costs.
Practical tools, honest limits, and how to stay relevant.
Close faster and report better by redesigning the finance team around AI instead of bolting it on.
When software starts doing the work rather than assisting it, and what that means for jobs, controls and clients.
A one-quarter plan from pilot to habit, built for teams without an IT department.
Predictive maintenance, quality and planning for the MSME factory, without a million-dollar budget.
The honest arithmetic of AI projects: costs, time saved, errors avoided, and what to stop measuring.
Hands-on practice that turns a spreadsheet into a thinking tool.
What India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act asks of every business, and the first ten things to fix.
Serving clients on both sides of the ocean: reconciling DPDP with US state privacy regimes.
Bias, explainability and accountability, translated for the boardroom and the shop floor.
Red flags and green flags from real case studies, bank statements and vendor data, plus the new AI-enabled frauds.
What good oversight looks like from the inside.
The compass work: professional ethics, attitude and values when the tools are smarter than ever.
From definitions to audit, chapter by chapter, the way practitioners actually meet it, with the exporter's refund playbook.
Practical tax thinking for professionals and businesses.
What the fine print means for investors, businesses and anyone trading with the world.
Approaches, methods and financial statement analysis, from registered valuer training, including cross-border deals.
Reports that get funded: structure, projections and the story behind the numbers.
How finance leadership is being reinvented for MSMEs and startups, at home and across borders.
Banks, NBFCs, export credit and equity: where the money is and what each lender wants to see.
Delivered in English and Hindi, for the businesses that need it most.
A working plan for income, goals and the years between.
Compounding, habits and the decade that decides the rest.
How money actually moves, and how to make it work.
Seeing the whole board before making the move, and frameworks for choosing well when the stakes are real.
The human and organisational approach to leading people.
Getting to yes without giving away the room, whether the other side sits across the table or across the ocean.
Turning friction into progress instead of fallout.
The three intelligences a career actually runs on.
The essentials of running things well.
Saying what you mean so it lands the way you meant it.
Slides that land, on global stages and in the Monday meeting: structure, design and finding answers faster.
Working with people, not just alongside them.
Growing a team while everyone in it grows too.
Walking in prepared, walking out remembered.
Honest direction for the crossroads moments.
The unglamorous habits that make professionals trusted.
The widening map of what a CA can become.
Why the question-askers outlast the answer-knowers, and how to practise it daily.
I was mentored by Rishi Sir during my GMCS training, and under his guidance I gained invaluable insights into interview preparation, resume writing and job-offer negotiations. What sets him apart is his exceptional communication and his passion for sharing knowledge. He conveys complex concepts in a clear, engaging manner, making each session both informative and inspiring, and his guidance equipped me with practical tools and the confidence to navigate a competitive market.
His ability to connect with the audience, combined with an engaging teaching style, made each session insightful and impactful. His unique approach and forward-thinking mindset left a lasting impression on me.
Recommendations from mentees, batchmates and clients live on my profile, and that is where I would love yours to land too.
Open my recommendations →Forty-nine topics across seven tracks: global business and trade; AI and automation; data, trust and governance; finance, tax and policy; money and wealth; leadership and strategy; and communication and career. Every topic exists as a real, delivered session with original decks, case studies, practice files and quiz banks built and refined since 2015.
Most topics can be shaped into a keynote, a half-day workshop or a full training programme, depending on how deep your team wants to go. The supporting material - decks, case studies, practice files and quiz banks - is included either way.
CA students and article trainees, practising professionals, corporate finance teams, MSME owners, and ICAI branches and study circles. Over six hundred young professionals have been mentored into the profession through these sessions since 2015.
Yes. Financial Literacy for SMEs, for instance, is delivered in both English and Hindi, because the businesses that need it most are not always served in English.
He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with ICAI in 2012, led Indirect Taxation at Tata Cummins, and has been ICAI faculty and a speaker since 2015. He co-authored an ICAI publication on AI and the DPDP era, sits on CII industry panels on smart manufacturing and AI, and has built three ventures - ZARK & Co. LLP, InfiBooks and InfiAI Edge.
Pick a slot on the booking calendar below, or write to rishi@kraca.in with the audience, the format you have in mind and rough dates. A reply usually follows within a couple of working days.
Whether you would like to invite me to speak, discuss an idea from my writing, explore mentoring, or simply trade notes on where finance and AI are heading, pick a time that works for you.
The calendar opens in a new tab. Choose a time, add a line about the audience and the format you have in mind, and you are set.
Open the Booking Calendar →Prefer email? rishi@kraca.in
