2022 40 Under 40: Poornabodh Kashyap, 36

Kashyap’s interest and passion in fire protection and safety came from two events he experienced as a child: The Upahar Cinema tragedy in New Delhi in 1997 and the World Trade Center attack in 2001. Kashyap thought about how these fires could be so deadly and how they could be avoided. That curiosity led to a fire protection intern position out of college, where he got the opportunity to work on analyzing smoke behavior and spread patterns using fire dynamic simulator software. He also got the chance to research parking garage fires as part of a study and interpret the building codes. This helped lay the foundation of being a passionate advocate and leader in the fire protection industry. While working in the Middle East as a manager for fire engineering consulting, he worked on many different projects including multimillion dollar high-rise and super high-rise developments in health care, retail, luxury residences, hospitality, office and mixed-use occupancies. This led to working in the hospitality industry and managing projects for a number of hotels in the Middle East, which has taken him all over the world; he’s currently operating in the Asia-Pacific region. Kashyap has been a regular speaker at regional fire protection meetings including SFPE Middle East, Saudi Engineers Conference, Fire India conference and the Fire & Security Association of India conference. He also has written articles for multiple publications. Outside of work, Kashyap is an avid tennis player, theater buff and reader of nonfiction espionage books. He dreams of watching the men’s final at Wimbledon in person.

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