Dr. Udai Shanker Awasthi born on 12th July, 1945 at Uttar Pradesh, graduated in Chemical Engineering from Banaras Hindu University in 1967. He has been working as the Managing Director of Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Ltd. (IFFCO) since February 1993. A visionary and true envoy of masses, he commands a leadership not merely in Indian Fertilizer Industry but is a respected name in Global fertilizer world. IFFCO under his dynamic leadership has achieved laurels, where 55 million families are reaping the benefits of toil of Dr. Awasthi, year after year for last two and half decade. He has never failed to provide them return on their investment in IFFCO. The thick and thins of economy has not affected his resolve to do better than previous year. He is the tallest cooperative leader and no less a corporate head, a rural economist, an accomplished technocrat and above all a messiah for rural farmers. Under his visionary leadership, IFFCO climbed to 43rd position in the list of Fortune India 500 companies, the only cooperative to be featured amongst top 100 companies in this list. IFFCO is at 8th position in the list of Business Standard (BS) 1000 companies.

A Missionary of Cooperative Movement, Dr. Awasthi has devoted his life to the growth of Cooperative movement. He has shaped the cooperative movement in such a way that any corporate would be envious of IFFCO, under his long inning of more than two decades of leadership, grown manifold with 55 million members and to almost 35,025 member cooperatives societies. He provides support & Extension Services to member societies; ensuring 20% annual dividend since last 17 years. IFFCO today is a perfect case study to showcase how the principles of participation if practiced with uprightness and with true spirit of selflessness can be a formidable business model. IFFCO under his leadership has grown as an organization where every corporate vie to establish relationship. Dr. Awasthi is however not content with merely creating just one such institution, his dream is to replicate this model and build plethora of such islands of excellence. His vision is to make the cooperative model as the main life line of rural economy.