THE ILSS PEOPLE PRACTICES PROGRAM

Head, Consulting Services SOIL

AKANSHA ARORA CHOJHER

Akansha comes with 20 years of experience in the HR space, poised well within Corporate and Consulting setups. In the last decade she has been extensively involved in organization transformation work.

She is currently heading Consulting services for SOIL (School of Inspired Leadership). Her last full-time assignment was with KFC, as Director HR for the Field and Franchises.

She is passionate about building capability in the social sector and has been involved with Udayan Care for the last 8 years. She serves on their advisory board.

A believer of lifelong learning, she is currently pursuing her Professional Doctorate.

Executive Coach & Podcast Host, Atalanta Diaries Team Coach and Member of Advisory Board, Jai Vakeel Foundation

ENMA POPLI

Enma has over 22 years of experience as an entrepreneur, trainer and senior HR professional. As the founder of a successful boutique training company with franchisees in six cities across India, Enma experienced first-hand challenges faced by senior leadership positions. Enma is a certified executive coach and coaches global business leaders from Fortune 100 to start-ups and not for profits.

Through her years as an executive coach and as a result of a global research with female professionals, who responded with appeals for inspiration and advice from other breakthrough women, Enma started her own podcast, Atalanta Diaries, where she is interviewing breakthrough women across fields and geographies, who share their stories about unapologetically paving their own way and claiming their rightful seat at the table.

Enma’s almost eight year journey at Jai Vakeel started as a volunteer after which she went onto Head Human resources. Enma partnered with Archana Chandra, the CEO to drive a transformation from being ‘founder led’ to ‘professionally managed’. While Enma continues to work very closely with the CEO as her thought partner in these seven years she moved from Mumbai to Chandigarh and is currently located in the US. Enma is now Team Coach and part of the advisory board and mentors the HR team to bring in best practices and works with the leadership team to help build a culture that is result oriented and aligned to the Jai Vakeel values.

Co-Founder, Timshel

RAKHI SINGH

“My purpose is to enable leaders to step into their power and be the best version of themselves”

In her experience spanning over 20 years she has worked extensively in the spaces of Organization Development and Culture Building, Performance Management, Leadership Assessment and Development and Coaching, she has worked with diverse sectors, people, gender and change initiatives both at the systemic and individual level. In her past stint with Grow Talent, Right Management and Aon (now Kincentric), she got the opportunity to work with a range of organizations including MNCs, family owned businesses, start ups and mid size companies. Some of her clients in the social sector include Ashoka University, Ipas Development Foundation, Madhi Foundation, Indian Leaders for Social Sector, Indian School of Development Management, United Way Chennai, Central Square Foundation etc.

Rakhi is a certified DEI practitioner ( Hogan, MBTI and Adept certified) uses these tools and is passionate and committed to enable women leaders, discover their purpose and reclaim their power.

Rakhi is also an avid fitness and health enthusiast . She is a mother of two boys and lives in New Delhi, India.

Serial Enterpreneur, Founder & ex-CEO, 321 Education

GAURAV SINGH

Gaurav Singh founded 321 Education which has impacted 3 lakh+ students, 30,000 teachers and 3000 schools. A 2019 independent evaluation found that in just 1 year, 321 was improving student learning by 4 times compared to the control group. For his work, Gaurav was awarded the prestigious Ashoka & Echoing Green fellowships. He was also the first fellow recruited in the first batch of Teach for India. After running the foundation for 10 years, raising 40Cr in this period and taking the team size to 75+ people, Gaurav stepped down as CEO in 2021. He continues to be on the board of 321 & currently does executive coaching, startup consulting and runs online courses for managers and leaders.

Co-Founder, Timshel

GAYATRI DAS SHARMA

Gayatri’s professional experience over the last twenty-four years has been in the area of talent and leadership development. In her capacity as a consultant, coach and facilitator she has had the opportunity to live and work in India, China and the USA.

Gayatri has worked on several organizational and people change initiatives, which required her to influence and drive change both at a systemic and people level. Some of the key projects that she has led are a change management initiative with a large India conglomerate, this involved culture change, organization restructuring, HR system design and deployment and leadership assessment and development. She has played a key role in the design and implementation (across ten thousand employees) of an IT enabled performance and management system for one of India’s largest public-sector engineering companies.

Co-Founder and CEO, Simple Education Foundation

MAINAK ROY

Mainak is an Education specialist with over 15 years of versatile experience in the sector. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Simple Education Foundation, an education nonprofit working to improve public education in low income communities in India. His primary responsibilities include program design, strategy building and business development. Prior to establishing Simple, he worked with Education Influence, Teach for India as a Fellow & Program Manager; and at Acumen as an India Fellow. Mainak completed his B.Tech in Electronics and Communications from SRM University in 2012.

Co-Founder, The Core Questin

MANDIRA KALA

Mandira is a Co-founder and Leadership Coach at The Core Questin, a leadership consulting company. In her coaching practice, she has worked with CEOs, senior executives, entrepreneurs, senior leaders in career transitions, and young high-potential achievers across India, Europe, US.

Mandira also serves as an Executive Coach for The Women’s Impact Alliance, USA. She holds multiple credentials, including: an ACC credential from ICF, a certified Leadership Circle ProfileTM Coach, and training in the Neuroscience of Change, Coaches Rising, The Netherlands.

Mandira brings 15+ years of experience as a senior leader in the area of public policy and social impact. Mandira holds a PhD in Public Policy from University of Massachusetts, Boston, an MSW from TISS, Mumbai and a B.A (Hons.) in Psychology from Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi.

Founder & CEO, The Core Questin

SHWETA ANAND ARORA

Shweta Anand Arora is the Founder and CEO of The Core Questin. In the last two years, The Core Questin has delivered programs, coached senior leaders and teams and helped change and transformation in corporates, start-ups, and non-profit organisations.

Prior to founding The Core Questin, Shweta has several years’ leadership experience across the consulting, start-up, and non-profit sectors. She was part of the Social Impact Leadership Team at BCG, Director and part of the founding team at The Education Alliance, and a member of the core leadership team that created and scaled XSEED (formerly iDiscoveri).

She is a highly qualified coach with multiple credentials, including: a PCLC; an ACC credential and a certification in Deep Transformational Coaching. She holds a Bachelor’s in Psychology from LSR, a Master’s degree in education from Harvard University, and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.

Founder and CEO, TrustIn

MEGHANA SRINIVAS

Meghana is a legal tech entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of TrustIn, a startup that empowers companies to build safer cultures through a secure, sensitive SaaS system for end to end POSH [Prevention of Sexual Harassment] implementation. She also consults as a certified external member on the Internal Committees of multiple companies.

Meghana is passionate about harnessing the power of technology to scale impact and innovation, and about building capacity in individuals, teams, and organizations towards sustainable and positive impact.

Meghana is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and was the Program Director at the CoWrks Foundry, a VC-backed business accelerator for early stage tech companies. Previously, she’s managed multiple programs, projects and people in the social impact space, at major nonprofits including Teach For India and Make A Difference.

Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy

NOSHIR DADRAWALA

Noshir H. Dadrawala is CEO, Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy (CAP) through which he has been offering compliance related advisory to nonprofits and corporate social initiatives. His career spans over 35 years in the nonprofit sector, working with a diverse range of organisations, from large established national and global organisations, to corporate and family grant makers, to start ups.

His current international affiliation includes serving as member on the advisory board of the International Center for Not-for-profit Law (ICNL).In India, he serves as trustee of the Forbes Marshall Foundation, Everest Industries Foundation, Collective Good Foundation, G. J. Kapoor Foundation, Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra, Ashta No Kai Foundation, Make a Wish Foundation and the Bombay Community Trust. He is also a member of the Audit Committee of Akshay Patra Foundation. Noshir has authored several resource books and is currently an active Blogger on compliance related issues for NPOs. He is also a speaker at many local and international conferences and guest faculty at leading business schools.

Independent Consultant – People Practices & HR

NUPUR BHARGAVA

Nupur Bhargava is an independent HR Consultant with over 20 years of hands-on experience as a senior Human Resource leader and Executive Team member. An innovative Human Resources professional with a proven track record of implementing strategic improvements, creating productive partnerships, developing and implementing programs, and human resource management in the corporate and not for profit sector. Nupur began her career in Human Resources with PepsiCo India as a Management Trainee in the Human Resources function. Over the next few years of accelerated growth in the business, she gained rich and diverse experience and expertise in all areas of Human Resources including talent acquisition, compensation and benefits, inclusion and diversity. In 2010, Nupur transitioned to the development sector and served as a key member of the Leadership team at the Akanksha Foundation. Nupur is currently a Human Resources Advisor with The Convergence Foundation, Central Square Foundation, and Ashoka University. She holds a Master’s in Organizational Psychology and a Masters in Business Administration with a specialization in Human Resources.

Director – Human Resources, The Antara Foundation

POOJA MATHUR PANDE

A seasoned HR professional, Pooja has over 22 years of experience in various dimensions of HR including Organization Development, HR Strategy, Talent Management, Performance Development, Learning and Development and Compensation Management. Most recently, Pooja was the Director for HR & Administration at Aga Khan Foundation. Her previous roles include Program Director for HR & Leadership Development at Piramal Foundation and leading HR at John Snow India, Population Services India (PSI) and CRY. She also enjoyed her 4-year stint as an Independent Consultant working with Amnesty International, Greenpeace India, Dream-A-Dream and Think Strategic. An MBA in HR with a degree in law, Pooja is also an experienced soft skills trainer. She is a Certified practitioner of MBTI and certified in Assessment Development Centres by T V Rao Learning Systems. She is also a facilitator of the Thomas Kilmann Index tool on Conflict Management. She is currently completing her coaching certification from ICF (International Coaching Federation).

Founder & Chief Executive, Arpan

POOJA TAPARIA

Pooja Taparia is Founder and Chief Executive of Arpan, a globally-recognized, award-winning NGO working towards the elimination of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in India. Based in Mumbai, Arpan is India’s largest NGO providing CSA Prevention and Intervention services for both children and adults. As a critical stakeholder for state and non-state actors, Arpan is a leading voice in the space of CSA and uses advocacy and research to push for policy and systemic change at the local, state and national levels. Since 2007, Arpan has impacted over 2 million children and adults.

Pooja is also on the board of Sol’s ARC, which addresses the challenges experienced by struggling learners across their lifespans and works towards improving their life outcomes.

Founder & CEO, ProGrowth People Solutions

SAURABH NIGAM

A results-driven HR leader with 20+ years of experience, Saurabh specializes in building high-performing organizations. He brings a deep understanding of the people challenges faced by early-stage and high-growth companies, honed through impactful roles at Omidyar Network, Snapdeal, Beroe and Aditya Birla Group where he delivered measurable business outcomes across diverse industries including retail, BFSI, KPO, e-commerce, education, and technology.

Saurabh excels at aligning HR strategies with business objectives, driving growth, and fostering a thriving culture. His expertise spans talent acquisition, leadership development, performance management (OKR, MBO), compensation & benefits, and organizational design. He is passionate about empowering leaders and teams to reach their full potential through executive coaching and leadership development programs.

A recognized thought leader with a data-driven approach, Saurabh leverages HR analytics and metrics to optimize workforce planning and talent management. He is a LinkedIn Top Voice and a sought-after speaker on talent management and leadership. He is a certified OKR Professional and Trainer, Birkman Professional, and Crucial Conversations Facilitator. Saurabh holds a Post Graduate Diploma in PM&IR from XLRI and has been recognized as one of the Top 25 Future HR Leaders by People Matters & DDI International. He also authors a popular HR newsletter (“Musings of an HR Guy”) with ~30k subscribers on Linkedin.

CEO, Atma

SNEHA ARORA

Sneha is the Chief Executive Officer at Atma and is leading the Fundraising, Governance and Communications verticals. She has close to thirteen years of experience in the private and development sector. An MBA from the Indian School of Business, Sneha has held multiple positions across strategy consulting and corporate finance. She is deeply passionate about making a positive impact in people’s lives through her work and is excited to drive this through the capacity building of NGOs at Atma. She has been selected as an Acumen Fellow in 2022. Before joining Atma, she worked at Boston Consulting Group’s Social Impact practice and has experience in supporting large-scale transformation projects in Education and Water with State governments in India.

CEO, SNEHA

VANESSA D’SOUZA

Vanessa D’Souza is CEO of SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action) since March 2013. Prior to that, she worked with Citibank India for 21 years in various positions, her last role being Director, Citigroup Private Bank. She has completed her BA in Economics honors and MBA with a specialization in Marketing Management. She also did a Management Executive Development Program at Stanford University, sponsored by Citibank. She completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Public Health Nutrition in 2016. She is a Fellow of the Dasra / Harvard Business Review Leadership Program 2014.
She was awarded the Social Innovation and Iconic Leadership Award by World CSR Congress 2016. She was awarded the Mother Theresa Scholarship to attend a program on “Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management” at Harvard Business School in July 2017.She is married to a Surgical Oncologist and has two children. Her hobbies are cooking, reading and travel.