Archana Kotecha

Regulatory compliance must be agile, creative and proactive if companies are to protect their people and business. Innovative companies have the opportunity to transform legal compliance into opportunities for systemic change and shift the paradigm to active rights protection, impacting thousands of workers. Archana is a UK qualified barrister, CEDR accredited mediator, former corporate lawyer, and regional expert on human trafficking and forced labour issues, who is redefining the standard for responsible conduct in the private sector and specifically in supply chain business. She has over 15 years of experience advising UN agencies (IOM, ILO, and UNICEF), ASEAN bodies, Governments, businesses, civil society groups, and legal practitioners across Asia. The rights-holder perspective is central in her legal approach, which seeks creative solutions within the context of commercial requirements and complex regulatory challenges. The Remedy Project and ReAct Asia are sister organisations founded and headed by Archana to learn through dynamic stakeholder engagement, test creative frameworks for worker-protection and to push new industry benchmarks for responsible business conduct. Archana is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and the prestigious US Department State International Visitor Leadership Programme. She has been awarded the Emilie Ashurst Anti-Slavery Award for Leadership in 2021 and was named as one of the 2017 Top ten Innovative Lawyers in Asia Pacific by the Financial Times. She is recognised as an 2023 APAC Entrepreneur and one of the 10 Most Admired Women Leaders of 2021 of Industry Era Women Leaders. Archana is a member of the Asian Seafood Improvement Collaborative Social Standards Steering Committee, the Steering Committee of the Responsible Labour Initiative of the Responsible Business Alliance, Expert Working Group on Complaints Mechanism member for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and Alternative Legal Expert for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Open-Ended Intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (IGWG on TNCs and OBEs).