Rishi Arora — Educator, Author & Speaker

About Rishi

A teacher at heart. A builder by habit.

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 Arora

✔Chartered Accountant (ICAI), qualified 2012

✔Co-author, ICAI publication on AI & the DPDP era

✔Faculty & Speaker, ICAI (since 2015)

✔CII industry panelist, Smart Manufacturing & AI

✔27 professional licences & certifications

✔Chair, Entrepreneurship Vertical, Yi Jamshedpur

My Journey

From cleaning tables to the classroom

Not a straight line. From a Delhi café floor to boardrooms and ICAI classrooms, every turn taught me something the next chapter needed.

The roots

A steel-city boyhood

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.

2006 – 07

A one-way ticket to Delhi

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.

The hustle years

Cleaning tables, running events, working the night shift

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.

2012

Chartered Accountant, the hard way

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.

The Tata years

Homecoming, and finance at scale

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.

2015

The classroom changes everything

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.

2018 onwards

Three ventures, one itch

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.

Recently

Writing and the wider stage

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.

The chapter being written

More writing, more stages, more mentees, and an open mind about where curiosity points next.

Perspectives

What I think about, out loud

The ideas I keep returning to in my writing, workshops and talks, practically, honestly and without the hype.

🤖

AI will not replace accountants. Indifference will.

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.

🔐

Data governance is the new professional ethics

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.

🌱

Teaching is the best way to keep learning

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.

The Builder in Me

Three "what ifs" that became real

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.

What if a CA firm trained its people differently?

ZARK & Co. LLP

A chartered accountancy practice that doubles as a training ground, where young CAs learn global accounting, automation and disciplined delivery from day one.

What if bookkeeping felt effortless?

InfiBooks

An experiment in rebuilding finance delivery around technology rather than headcount, and a daily reminder that simplicity is the hardest thing to engineer.

What if the repetitive work simply disappeared?

InfiAI Edge

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.

The Teaching Shelf

Pick a topic. I'll bring the stories.

A decade of teaching leaves you with a shelf. Mine holds thirty-one topics across five tracks, each backed by original decks, case studies, exercises and quizzes I have built and refined session by session since 2015. Filter by track, or browse the whole shelf.

31 Topics 5 Tracks A decade of original material

GST, End to End

From definitions to audit, chapter by chapter, the way practitioners actually meet it.

Income Tax & Tax Advisory

Practical tax thinking for professionals and businesses.

The Union Budget, Decoded

What the fine print means for investors, businesses and the road to 2047.

Forensic Accounting & Fraud Detection

Red flags and green flags, taught through real case studies, bank statements and vendor data.

Business Valuation

Approaches, methods and financial statement analysis, from registered valuer training.

Preparing Project Reports

Reports that get funded: structure, projections and the story behind the numbers.

Audit Committees & Governance

What good oversight looks like from the inside.

AI for Finance Professionals

Practical tools, honest limits, and how to stay relevant.

The Virtual CFO Revolution

How finance leadership is being reinvented for MSMEs and startups.

Opportunities in Overseas Outsourcing

The global accounting opportunity, and how Indian professionals can claim it.

Opportunities for CAs

The widening map of what a CA can become.

Excel for Finance Professionals

Hands-on practice that turns a spreadsheet into a thinking tool.

Presentations that Persuade

Building slides and finding answers faster, PowerPoint and smart search.

Financial Literacy for SMEs

Delivered in English and Hindi, for the businesses that need it most.

Financial Planning

A working plan for income, goals and the years between.

Why Wealth Starts in Your 20s

Compounding, habits and the decade that decides the rest.

Investment & Banking Essentials

How money actually moves, and how to make it work.

Strategic Thinking

Seeing the whole board before making the move.

Effective Decision Making

Frameworks for choosing well when the stakes are real.

Leadership & Organisational Behaviour

The human and organisational approach to leading people.

Negotiation Skills

Getting to yes without giving away the room.

Conflict Management

Turning friction into progress instead of fallout.

EQ, MQ & IQ

The three intelligences a career actually runs on.

General Management

The essentials of running things well.

Business Communication & Articulation

Saying what you mean so it lands the way you meant it.

Interpersonal & Relationship Skills

Working with people, not just alongside them.

Team Building & Career Development

Growing a team while everyone in it grows too.

Interview Readiness

Walking in prepared, walking out remembered.

Career Counselling

Honest direction for the crossroads moments.

Office Organisation & Etiquette

The unglamorous habits that make professionals trusted.

Ethics, Attitude & Values

The compass work: professional ethics and the attitude behind them.

Every topic above exists as a real, delivered session, not a title on a list. Decks, case studies, practice files and quiz banks included. Most can be shaped into a keynote, a half-day workshop or a full training programme.

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