The ILSS FUNDRAISING CONFERENCE 2022

Alina Alam

Founder-CEO

Alina is the founder of ‘Mitti Café' which is a chain of cafes that provides experiential training and employment to adults with physical, intellectual and psychiatric disability. The organisation’s outreach initiative also helps create awareness about inclusion and disability rights. Mitti Cafés across India are managed by hundreds of adults with disability who have have in the last few years served over 6 million meals and beverages-thereby creating awareness about inclusion with every meal served. Their warriors with disability in this pandemic have cooked and served over 2 million meals to the poor and vulnerable communities and homeless groups, thereby proving the magic of abilities as a result of economic independence and dignity.

In the short span Alina has been featured in the Forbes list of 30 under 30, has won award in Niti Aayog-WTI Award, United Nations Intercultural Innovation Award, COVID Warrior Award: Deutsche Bank, is a Commonwealth Youth Awardee and has won awards like the NCPEDEP Mindtree Hellen Keller Award, Times of India-She Unlimited Award, Rotary Exemplar award, Microsoft Nipman Award, Tiecon Young female Entrepreneur of the Year Award, amongst others.

AMEEN HAQUE

Founder, Storywallahs

Ameen believes that if fundraising is your work then storytelling is also your work. He helps leaders and organisations improve their storytelling and take it to the next level. For profit companies like Google, Flipkart and Amazon to Social sector organisations like CRY, Teach For India, Make a Difference and BRAC, Ameen and his colleagues have helped these organisations leverage the power of narratives. Prior to setting up Storywallahs, Ameen has worked in advertising and consulting.

Amit Chandra

Philanthropist & Chairman, Bain Capital

Amit Chandra joined Bain Capital as a Managing Director in early 2008, and is a part of the firm’s leadership team in Asia. He received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from VJTI, Bombay University, post which he worked at India’s leading engineering & construction firm, Larsen & Toubro. He then received his MBA from Boston College and was awarded the school’s Distinguished Alumni in 2007. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Amit spent most of his professional career at DSP Merrill Lynch, a leading investment bank in India. He retired from DSP Merrill Lynch in 2007 as its Board Member & Managing Director, to move to Private Equity.

Mr. Chandra was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2007 and was named in Asia’s Heroes of Philanthropy list by Forbes in 2016, along with his wife Archana. He is currently or in the past has served as a Member of the Board of Directors of a number of leading companies, like Tata Sons, Genpact, L&T Finance, Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Piramal Enterprises, and Tata Investment Corporation. He is also active in India’s not for profit space, and is or has been associated as a Trustee of the Tata Trusts, as a Founder/Board Member of Ashoka University, a Board Member of Give India and The Akanksha Foundation. He also a Member of the Advisory Boards of Bridgespan in India, the Centre for Social Impact & Philanthropy, and Swades Foundation.

Amrit Ahuja

Communications Advisor, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, UNICEF - Yuwaah, Central Square Foundation ,

Amrit comes with over 28 years of experience as a brand marketing and communication consultant. She is a celebrated women leader and a mentor. In her post 50’s career or her “second act” as she calls it she works as a gig consultant in the social sector. In her current role she is a communication advisor to Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Unicef - Yuwaah and Central Square Foundation.

She is a seasoned digital practitioner and in her last corporate role she was the communication director for Facebook India (now Meta).

Amrit also manages a women community where she trains mid-level women to take on the role of senior positions. She runs modules for groups and individuals on building a personal brand and managing their executive presence.

And she is a ILSS alum and attributes her “joy of” a “second act’ to the program at ILSS.

Aniket Doegar

Co-Founder & CEO,Haqdarshak

Aniket Doegar (he/him) is the CEO and co-founder of HESPL (Haqdarshak Empowerment Solutions Private Limited), a social impact organisation working on easing access to welfare. An alumnus of SRCC, Delhi, Aniket first started out in the development sector as a TFI (Teach for India) Fellow. Over the course of the last 12 years, he has co-founded non-profits and various other organisations in this space. Recently, he was also an Acumen Fellow.

For the last six years, Aniket has been leading the Haqdarshak team with his passionate drive for creating impact at scale. Aniket was also on the advisory board of Teach for India and is currently a board of trustee at the YP foundation. Haqdarshak uses a mobile app and field force of 20,000+ trained women agents to help citizens discover, apply for, and benefit from Government and Private schemes / benefits. They've helped 2.2 Million+ families and micro businesses get USD 300M.+ in benefits, while the women entrepreneurs earning USD 1M+ in the last 6 years.

Anushri Alva

Chief Executive Officer at Adhyayan Quality Education Foundation

Anushri has worked as an Educator for the last 11 years across East Asia, India and the US, on various Education-based programs. Since 2017, she has been a founding team member and CEO of Adhyayan Foundation- a not for profit that builds the capacity of educational leadership to improve the quality of Government schools through evidence-based governance. Their work spans 4 state governments.

She started her career as a Teacher at Teach for India, after which she went on to work for Sanctuary for Families as a Literacy Coordinator supporting the educational needs of survivors of gender-based violence.

Anushri received her postgraduate degree in International and Comparative Education from Columbia University in 2014, and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Sociology from University of Hong Kong in 2010. She is an alum of the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship's Women led accelerator cohort and is an organising committee member of Teachers' College's India chapter.

ARNAV KAPUR

Lead – Philanthropic, Partnerships, India & South Asia, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Arnav leads Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Philanthropic Partnerships portfolio in India and South Asia with the objective of strengthening the philanthropic ecosystem and partnering with individuals, family offices, and corporates to have impact at scale across the priority areas of the foundation. He is also anchoring Gates Foundation’s Asia strategy across Bangladesh, Singapore, and Nepal. He previously worked with the India Policy & Global Growth and Opportunity team, where he helped develop the investment portfolio and foundation’s agriculture development and health policy strategy. Prior to joining the foundation in July 2013, he worked as a Consultant with Deloitte Consulting, where he advised senior clients across sectors on strategy development, e-governance, supply chain management, and financial planning. He holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi, India, where he graduated in the top 10% of his class. He also holds the Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP) certification from APICS, USA.

Ashif Shaikh

Co-Founder & Trustee, Jan Sahas

Ashif Shaikh is an Indian social activist, known for his role in Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, a campaign for the eradication of manual scavenging. He is also a co-founder of Jan Sahas, a human rights organisation. Since 2000, Jan Sahas has been working to end caste- and gender-based slavery and violence through the eradication of manual scavenging, caste-based sex work, forced labour, and trafficking. He has won several awards for this work, including the Sadbhavana Award and the Times of India Social Impact Award.

ASHISH DHAWAN

Philanthropist and Founder, Central Square Foundation

Ashish Dhawan worked for twenty years in the investment management business and ran one of India’s leading private equity funds, ChrysCapital. In June 2012, he started CSF to pursue evidence driven and innovation led system reform in school education. He is also the founder of two new organisations to address the talent gap in the social sector – ISDM and ILSS.

Ashish has also created the Foundation for Economic Development (FED) to focus on agricultural policy reform, and 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 has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a dual Bachelor’s (BS/BA) degree from Yale University. He is on the Chair of India Advisory Board of Harvard Business School and is a member of Yale’s Development Council.

MEKIN MAHESHWARI

Founder and CEO Udhyam Learning Foundation

Mekin Maheshwari is extremely passionate about discovering & unleashing human potential beyond limits. In 2017, he started Udhyam Learning Foundation, a not-for-profit an organisation that aims to develop entrepreneurial mindsets amongst youth and nano-entrepreneurs to help them pursue their potential.

Mekin started his career in 2002 with Yahoo! and then went on to join Ugenie where he created weRead - a successful social network around books. He was an early team member at Flipkart where he played various roles. As Head of Engineering, he built a great tech team, which he counts as his biggest professional achievement to date. He then went on to establish two small start-ups within Flipkart and finally took on the role of Chief People Officer.

NOSHIR DADRAWALA

Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy

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.

Drawing upon more than three and a half decades of hands-on experience and practical insights, Noshir's main role at CAP involves simplifying the confusing and complex maze of old, but ever changing, new laws. Noshir's legal expertise in the sector is widely recognized, as is his deep understanding of compliance within philanthropy.

His current international affiliation includes serving as member on the advisory board of the International Center for Not-for-profit Law (ICNL). Earlier, he was on the Board of Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support (WINGS), Resource Alliance, as also Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium (APPC).

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.

Prachi Windlass

Senior Director,Michael & Susan Dell Foundation - India

PRIYA NAIK

Founder and CEO, Samhita

Priya Naik is the Founder and CEO of Samhita, a leading CSR consulting firm that designs innovative solutions and scales evidence-based approaches to maximize social impact. Samhita is a pioneer in driving collaboration in the CSR ecosystem, creating value propositions for stakeholders to collectively address critical areas such as sanitation and women’s empowerment. Priya’s journey in the social sector began as a Researcher at the Poverty Action Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, where she was part of two award-winning student startups. Her career is a fusion of on-ground grassroots solutions through enterprise and strategic consulting experience with established companies. She has a Master’s in Economics from Yale University, USA; a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA; and a Master’s in Commerce from Mumbai University.

Radhika Bharat Ram

 

Roopa Kudva

Managing Partner Omidyar Network India

 

SAMAR VERMA

Program Officer, Ford Foundation

Samar is a Program Officer at Ford Foundation, leading the program portfolios on public interest technologies, Future of Workers and Philanthropy. He has 25 years of professional experience in the corporate sector, conducting policy research, leading think-tank, international development and research grant management based in India and UK.

As Senior Program Specialist at International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, he managed the global Think Tank Initiative program in South Asia & Myanmar which provided multi-year institutional support and technical capacity building to strengthen think tanks.

He was the global head of Economic Justice Policy at Oxfam Great Britain leading their global work on trade, agriculture and climate change. He founded the Consortium of Trade and Development; a policy think tank. As Senior Fellow with the think tank ICRIER, he published widely. His writings on public policy are published by Oxford University Press and Sage.

He began his career as an economist with the corporate sector. Samar holds a PhD in Economics and an MBA.

Sanjay Purohit

Chief Curator, Societal Platform

 

SHANTANU GHOSH

Chief Advisor - Institutional Giving, Give India; Advisory Council Member, Milaan Foundation

Shantanu is an advisor to multiple catalytic social sector organisations like MIchael and Susan Dell Foundation, GiveIndia, ILSS, Social Venture Partners and a few NGOs engaged in implementation of programs. He was earlier the CEO for Social Finance India, a not for profit organization, set up with the objective to serve as a catalytic impact investment intermediary for the social sector. Outside the sector, he is an active angel investor and advisor in technology driven disruptive businesses. He decided to move away from a pure commercial career in early 2019 based on a desire to contribute to broader social goals. He was a global business leader and part of the management committee of Genpact through its journey from a captive to a premier transformation services and consulting company. He spent the first half of his career in B2C businesses with Unilever and GE Consumer Finance (both in India) and GE India as a functional finance leader (CFO).

Siddhant Sachdeva

Co-founder, Rocket Learning

 

TARA SINGH VACHANI

Executive Chairperson, Antara Senior Living; Managing Trustee, Max India Foundation

Tara Singh Vachani is the Executive Chairperson of Antara Senior Living and Vice Chairperson of Max India Limited. As the founder of Antara her vision was to give a new dimension to the Senior Care space in India. Tara is also the Managing Trustee of Max India Foundation, a role she is extremely passionate about. Max India Foundation currently focuses on supporting partners doing work in the space of Foundational Learning and runs a program on Social Emotional Ethical (SEE) learning in collaboration with Emory University.

She currently chairs the Teach for India’s Delhi Regional Board and is a member of the Advisory Board of Vedica Scholars Program. Tara is a 2020 member of Young Global Leaders, a part of the World Economic Forum and was also one of the ‘40 under 40’ leaders published by Economic Times in 2018.

With a major in Politics and South Asian studies at the National University of Singapore followed by courses in Strategy Management at the London School of Economics, and Hospitality Business Strategy and Management at Ecole hotelier de Lausanne, Switzerland; Tara loves to learn.

An enthusiastic traveler, she is deeply rooted in India by the love for her family and country.

VENKATESAM ESHWARA

Pro-Vice Chancellor – Development, Placements, and Alumni Relations Ashoka University

Venkat is currently Vice President,Development at Ashoka University. His responsibilities include fundraising, providing leadership and developing & implementing strategy for the institution. Prior to this, he has held central roles in top management with organisations of diverse profiles. His core strengths lie in building, growing and managing geographically diverse operations. With an entrepreneurial and start-up experience of 20 years, Venkat has built three companies from inception to significant growth and profitability. Venkat is an alumnus of St. Xaviers College, Mumbai and has worked as Chief Operating Officer, Prop Equity | P.E. Analytics Pvt. Ltd. before joining Ashoka University.

Aakanksha Gulati

Director, ACT Grants

JAakanksha is a Director at ACT Grants, where she heads the Education Fund and works across the ACT platform to help catalyse change through collectives that bring together startups, NGOs, public and private sector organizations. Prior to ACT, she led strategy and program design as the Chief Program Officer at Teach For India, which included supporting Fellowship recruitment and alumni impact. Prior to TFI Aakanksha worked at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods as an Assistant Vice President, and with Lehman Brothers (later Barclays Capital) as an Analyst on the Securitization and Mortgage Trading Desk.

Aakanksha was an F.C. Austin Scholar at the Kellogg School of Management where she received her MBA, and a graduate from Duke University with a double bachelors degree in Mathematics and Economics. Aakanksha believes that anyone who is interested in cross-disciplinary and innovative approaches to problem-solving ought to consider working in the social impact sector.

Geeta Goel

Country Director-India, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

Geeta is Country Director, India at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. In her role, Geeta manages the strategy and implementation of the foundation’s work in India in two key areas of Education and Family Economic Stability.

Geeta has represented the foundation on several Boards of its investee companies, including Ujjivan, Janalakshmi, Swadhaar, Arohan, and Micro Housing Finance Corporation. She is also on the Investment Committee of India Educational Investment Fund and Education Catalyst Fund and has served as Chairperson of the Impact Investors Council in India from April 2017 to March 2019. Geeta is on the Advisory Board of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad’s Advancement Trust.

In 2020, she was nominated by Forbes India’s list of Women Power - 20 women changing the game, and in 2017, she was amongst Business Today’s 30 Most Powerful Women in Impact.

Before joining the foundation, Geeta spent more than 12 years with PwC. She is an alumni of the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) and Lady Shri Ram College (Delhi).

Mahin Titus

Manager - Fundraising, Dream A Dream

Mahi Titus is a Fundraising Manager at Dream a Dream, where she works on securing grants and developing fundraising strategies to enable the re-imagining of education systems. Prior to Dream a Dream, she managed the two largest bank partnerships at a microfinance company and drove the transformation of the company into a small finance bank, specifically through the central operations bank build project. Mahi has a postgraduate degree in Development Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and has a B.A. (Hons.) in Economics from St. Stephen’s college. She loves music and enjoys playing the cajon.

Pritha Venkatachalam

Partner, The Bridgespan Group

Pritha is a partner in Bridgespan’s Mumbai office and the head of Market Impact, South Asia. She has advised donors, governments, nonprofits, and the private sector across Asia and Africa on a wide range of global development opportunities. At Bridgespan, Pritha has led and co-authored several reports such as Building Strong, Resilient NGOs in India: Time for New Funding Practices; Building the Bench at Indian NGOs: Investing to Fill the Leadership Development Gap; Bold Philanthropy in India; Philanthropic Collaboratives in India: The Power of Many; Community Engagement to Tackle COVID-19 in the Slums of Mumbai; and Philanthropy and the COVID-19 Response in India. She also supports leading philanthropies and social sector organizations on their strategy, operating model, and results delivery. Pritha has extensive experience in public health.

Prior to Bridgespan, Pritha established and led the New Delhi office of Dalberg Global Development Advisors, where she co-led the Global Health and Nutrition practice. Previously, she was a director and India office head at Cambridge Economic Policy Associates (CEPA) UK, and earlier a financial specialist at the World Bank.

Pritha holds a master’s 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 and the V-WA Award for Women Leaders in the Social Sector in India. Pritha serves on the advisory board of Bahaar Foundation, India Leaders for Social Sector (ILSS), and Social Alpha.

Archana Chandra

CEO and Board Member, Jai Vakeel Foundation

Archana Chandra presently serves as Board Member & CEO of Jai Vakeel Foundation & Research Centre, one of the largest NGOs serving those impacted by mental challenges. She is a Trustee of SRCC, which is building the largest hospital dedicated to children in the country. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of Annamrita (part of the ISKCON Food Relief Foundation), one of the largest NGOs in the country serving mid-day meals to less privileged children. She also serves on the Advisory Board of Antarang Foundation Prior to her current positions, Archana has worked in various marketing, PR, and HR roles at The Akanksha Foundation, Informix (a division of IBM), and Bennett & Coleman. She has a B.Com from Mumbai University and a Diploma in Business Management.