Ashish Dhawan

Philanthropist & Founder, Central Square Foundation

Ashish Dhawan is Founder and Chairman of Central Square Foundation (CSF) and a Founding Member of Ashoka University. Prior to this, he worked for twenty years in the investment management business and ran one of India’s leading private equity funds, ChrysCapital. In June 2012, he left his full-time role at Chrys Capital to start CSF to pursue evidence driven and innovation led system reform in school education. Ashoka University is a not for profit university that aims to offer an Ivy League-quality undergraduate programme in India, based on the US liberal education system. Ashish is also the founder of two new organisations to address the talent gap in the social sector – ISDM: A development management institute and ILSS: A program to transition experienced corporate talent into the development sector. More recently, Ashish has also created the Foundation for Economic Development (FED) to focus on policy reform in the agriculture sector. He also serves on the board of several non-profits including 3.2.1 Education Foundation, Teach For India, Centre for Civil Society, Bharti Foundation and India School Leadership Institute, Network for Quality Education, Khan Academy India, and Social Finance India. He is an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and a dual bachelor’s (BS/BA) holder with Magna Cum Laude honours from Yale University. He is on the Chair of India Advisory Board of Harvard Business School and a member of Yale’s Development Council.

Pritha Venkatachalam

Partner, The Bridgespan Group

Pritha is a Partner in Bridgespan’s Mumbai office. Pritha has been a Research Scholar at the Development Studies Institute at the London School of Economics. Prior to joining Bridgespan, Pritha established and led the New Delhi office of Dalberg Global Development Advisors, where she co-led the Global Health and Nutrition practice area. Previously, Pritha was a Director at Cambridge Economic Policy Associates (CEPA) UK, where she worked for almost a decade. She set up CEPA’s first international office in New Delhi and directed development mandates in Asia and Africa across public health, agriculture and infrastructure sectors. Pritha’s earlier responsibilities include being a financial specialist at the World Bank on urban infrastructure projects, and a Senior Consultant at Accenture in London and New Delhi. Pritha holds a Masters in Development Management from the London School of Economics and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore including an exchange program at Melbourne Business School. She is a recipient of the Citibank Leadership Award.

Shaveta Sharma Kukreja

Managing Director Central Square Foundation

Shaveta, Managing Director at Central Square Foundation (CSF), leads CSF’s efforts to improve capacity building and development of educators- teachers, principals and administrators. She also oversees CSF’s organisational development. She brings to the team more than a decade of professional experience in management and education. Her corporate background includes work at The Boston Consulting Group, Global Vantage (a business process outsourcing start-up) and Citibank. She has also been a visiting faculty member in the Human Resources and Organisational Behavior disciplines at various business schools in Delhi NCR. Her primary areas of interest are teaching and research of organisational behaviour and leadership styles. 

SRIVATSAN RAJAN

Partner, Cota Capital

Sri Rajan is a Partner at Cota Capital, an early stage fund in San Francisco. Prior to this, he was a partner in Bain & Company’s San Francisco office and had over 25 years of management consulting experience across India and the United States. He supported the creation and execution of turnaround strategies for multiple diversified firms and had significant experience working with private equity firms. He served as the Managing Partner for Bain & Company India and subsequently as its Chairman. Sri serves on the board of Delhivery, a logistics startup in India, and is an investor in and advisor to many other startups and funds. He is also the chair of the Consultative Council of Akshaya Patra, an India-based NGO that serves meals to more than 1.75 million children every day. He is also the Vice-Chair of Akshaya Patra USA and serves on the Advisory Boards of Central Square Foundation and Bridgespan India. Sri earned his MBA from the Wharton School of Business, where he was a Palmer Scholar. He graduated with a postgraduate degree in management from IIM, Calcutta.