Speakers

Development Economist, Professor and Senior Policy Advisor

A K Shivakumar

A K Shiva Kumar (Shiv), a New Delhi based development economist, he has been Co-Chair of Know Violence in Childhood – a global learning initiative – and senior policy adviser to UNICEF India. He teaches economics and public policy as a visiting faculty member in the YIF at Ashoka University, Indian School of Business, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Shiv was, until 2014, a member of the National Advisory Council, advising Government of India on social policy and legislation. He has undertaken several evaluation assignments for the UN and other agencies. He has served on the Boards of many NGOs and research organizations including Centre for Science and Environment, Institute for Human Development, Institute for Rural Development, International Center for Research on Women, and Public Health Foundation of India. He is the co-editor of the “Handbook of Human Development”, the “Handbook of Population and Development” and “India’s Children: Essays in Social Policy”. Shiv is an alumnus of Bangalore University and IIM -Ahmedabad as well as Harvard University from where he did his Masters in Public Administration and Ph.D in Political Economy and Government.

Chairman, Quality Council of India (QCI)

Adil Zainulbhai

Adil Zainulbhai is Chairman of the Quality Council of India (QCI). He retired as the Chairman of McKinsey & Company, India, after serving the company for 34 years – the last 10 of which were spent in India. Prior to returning to India, he led the Washington office of McKinsey, and founded its Minneapolis office.

As Chairman, QCI, he has been involved in strengthening quality standards across various sectors of Indian industry and infrastructure. Adil is on the board of many Indian companies, including Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro and Cipla. He is also the Chairman of Network 18 and TV18. He serves on the boards of numerous non-profit organisations, including the Piramal Foundation, American India Foundation, the CII National Council, Saifee Hospital, and Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust.

Adil graduated in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He also has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Chief Executive Officer, Kaivalya Education Foundation & Piramal Foundation

Aditya Natraj

Aditya Natraj is the CEO of Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF), and the Piramal Foundation. Previously, Aditya was the Director of Pratham in Gujarat for 5 years, Vice-President of Business Development at ProXchange for 2 years and a Consultant at KPMG for 5 years. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant, a Masters in Economics and has an MBA from INSEAD. Aditya has been awarded various fellowship and awards, namely the Ashoka Fellowship, Echoing Green Fellowship, Aspen India Fellowship and the Times Now Amazing Indian award in the Education category.

Co-Director - Institute of Sustainable Philanthropy

Adrian Sargeant

Adrian Sargeant is Co-Director of the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, visiting Professor of Fundraising at Avila University and the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He was formerly the first Hartsook Chair in Fundraising at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. He designed the UK’s system of professional education for fundraisers and is currently working on the European qualification framework for the European Fundraising Association.

Founder and CEO, Kahaani Wale

Aman Kaleem

Aman Kaleem is the Founder and CEO of Kahaani Wale. She is a Hubert Humphrey Fulbright Fellowship’s India nominee, a Young India Fellow and has been recognised by the Government of India and United Nations as ‘Make a Difference Leader’, for her work in the South Asian region. She is a faculty at the Vedica Scholars programme, Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia University. Her latest documentary for Ministry of Information and Broadcasting called “Shaadi, Sex aur Parivaar” premiered at ‘Imagine India International Film Festival Madrid’ and is currently being screened in festivals across the world. “We, The People” is her debut film as a producer.

Philanthropist & MD, Bain Capital

Amit Chandra

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.

Professor, Institute of Economic Growth

Amita Baviskar

Amita Baviskar is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. Her research focuses on the cultural politics of environment and development in rural and urban India. Her book In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley and other writings explore the themes of resource rights, popular resistance and discourses of environmentalism. She is currently studying food and agrarian environments in western India. Most of her work has been conducted in association with rights-based campaigns and organizations. Amita Baviskar’s recent publications include the edited books Contested Grounds: Essays on Nature, Culture and Power; Elite and Everyman: The Cultural Politics of the Indian Middle Classes (with Raka Ray); and First Garden of the Republic: Nature on the President’s Estate. She has taught at the University of Delhi and has been a visiting scholar at Stanford, Cornell, Yale, SciencesPo and the University of California at Berkeley. She was awarded the Infosys Prize for Social Sciences in 2010.

Founder CEO, The Education Alliance

Amitav Virmani

Amitav Virmani, Founder CEO, The Education Alliance. The Education Alliance aims to help governments in India provide a quality education to every child, by facilitating effective partnerships between state and non-state actors. The vision of TEA is to empower government schools to create the next generation of leaders. They work to catalyze quality transformation in India’s education system by nurturing the Government-Partnership School model. Prior to this Amitav was Country Director, ARK India, a UK based NGO. As their CD, Amitav was responsible for launching several programmes around school leadership, english literacy, school vouchers and school quality assessments. Amitav worked as a General Manager in the office of the CEO & MD at Ranbaxy Laboratories prior to his switch to the development sector. Amitav began his post MBA career in the USA working for Bristol Myers Squibb & Co. based in Princeton. Amitav is an alumnus of St. Stephens College, Delhi University. He got his MBA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and worked in the US for 4 years before returning home. Amitav is an Aspen India Leadership Initiative 3 Fellow and an Ashoka Fellow 2016.

Co-Founder & CEO, Haqdarshak

Aniket Deogar

Aniket Doegar is the CEO and co-founder of Haqdarshak, the first-ever enterprise to digitize welfare schemes on a single platform and provide application support to beneficiaries of these schemes in low-income regions. They have raised awareness and understanding of schemes for more than 300,000 citizens with a portfolio of 6,000 schemes digitized in 15+ Indian languages. The team comprises 5,000+ women entrepreneurs and full-time members working across 20 Indian states. Aniket was previously a Teach For India fellow, and has worked with the Gyan Prakash Foundation and Indus Action. He is also an Acumen India Fellow 2018. Aniket is an alumnus of SRCC, Delhi and has also been selected for Forbes 30 under 30, Asia.

CEO, Jharkhand State Development Council & Former Secretary, Government of India

Anil Swarup

Anil Swarup is currently appointed as the CEO, State Development Council of Jharkhand after his retirement from the Government of India. He was last posted as Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, Government of India. Before this assignment, in his capacity as Secretary, Ministry of Coal, he was instrumental in carrying out the auction of coal blocks. The initiatives taken by him resulted in record production of coal in India, which helped in tiding over the crisis created by coal shortages.He started his career in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in, 1981. His past assignments in various Ministries of the Government reflect his in-depth knowledge and experience in visualizing, conceptualizing, articulating and implementing various schemes. He holds a Masters degree in Political Science from Allahabad University, where he was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold medal for the best all-round student. He was nominated as one of the “policy change agents” by The Economics Times during the years 2010, 2012, 2015 & 2016. He was selected as one of the 35 “Action Heroes” in India Today’s 35th Annual Edition.

CEO, UnLtd India

Anshu Bhartia

Anshu Bhartia is the CEO of UnLtd India, a launchpad for social entrepreneurs and individuals passionate about entrepreneurship for creating social change. UnLtd India’s incubation program has facilitated the creation of more than 540,000 livelihood opportunities through more than 200 social enterprises, thus impacting the lives of around 5 million people.

With over 25 years of experience, Anshu has led organisations like Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture Network (RRAN) and Friends of Women’s World Banking (FWWB), a leading financial service organisation where she was instrumental in launching an innovative credit product for farmer producer organisations (FPOs) and for facilitating access to solar products and water and sanitation facilities.

Anshu is passionate about mentoring and scaling up of social enterprises.

Founder, Goonj

Anshu Gupta

Anshu Gupta, popularly known as the Clothing Man is the Founder of an Indian based nonprofit – Goonj. Asia’s Noble, the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award 2015, conferred to him credited him for ‘his creative vision in transforming the culture of giving in India, his enterprising leadership in treating cloth as a sustainable development resource for the poor, and in reminding the world that true giving always respects and preserves human dignity’. Anshu has done his Mass communications twice and his masters in Economics. Starting as a freelance journalist, he left a corporate job in 1998 and founded GOONJ with a mission to make clothing a matter of concern and to bring it among the list of subjects for the development sector. Over the years as Goonj garnered major awards, including World Bank’s Development Marketplace and NASA, Anshu also won recognition as an Ashoka and Schwab Fellow while he was also listed as one of India’s top social entrepreneurs by Forbes Magazine and Fast Company. He is also a member of Humanitarian Crisis Council of the World Economic Forum.

Corporate leader and philanthropist

Anu Aga

Anu Aga began her industry career in Thermax, an energy and environment engineering organisation in 1985. In 1991, she took charge of the company’s human resources function and was appointed as the Executive Chairperson of the Thermax Group after the death of her husband Rohinton Aga in 1996. Two years later she continued as the Non-Executive Chairperson. She retired as the Chairperson in October 2004.

As Chairperson, Mrs. Aga anchored the turnaround of Thermax through four major initiatives: reconstitution of the board, shedding of non-core activities, rightsizing of operations and increased focus on the customer. She was instrumental in driving a high-performance culture.

She recently retired as the Director on the Board of Thermax and also from chairing the Thermax Foundation.

Mrs. Aga now spends more time on social causes and traveling. Her area of interest is improving the quality of school education for the economically underprivileged. She is keenly involved with Akanksha and  Teach for India and is a member of the board. She was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2010.

CEO - Azim Premji Foundation, Chief Sustainability Officer - Wipro

Anurag Behar

Anurag has been engaged with efforts to improve education in India for the past sixteen years. He has been a vocal advocate for the critical importance of public systems, in particular the public education system. His many years in business have given him an insider’s view into both the possibilities and limits of markets. For the past few years he has also been engaged with environmental and ecological issues. He writes widely, including a fortnightly column for the newspaper Mint.

Anurag has earlier played leadership roles in business. As the CEO of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering, he led the business from being No. 20 in the world to being the No. 1 in 5 years. The business has operations in Europe, India, Brazil, US and China. He has been responsible for many corporate functions for Wipro including Brand, Quality and Innovation. In the early part of his career he was part of the team that built the leadership position of Wipro GE Healthcare in South Asia.

He continues to be associated with Wipro, providing oversight to the social and ecological initiatives of the Wipro Group, as its Chief Sustainability Officer. He is a member of Wipro’s Group Executive Council.

Chairperson - Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR)

Anurag Kundu

Anurag Kundu has extensive experience of working on children’s issues with particular focus on education issues and has been advising the Government of NCT of Delhi since 2015. Anurag has been a key member of the team that conceptualised and implemented the nationally and internationally acclaimed education reforms of the Government of NCT of Delhi. He has chaired and been part of several key committees such as framing Government of Delhi’s policy on the question of “No-Detention Policy” under Right to Education Act, committee on strategic issues related to lockdown during Covid-19 pandemic, implementation plan of New Education Policy in the state of Delhi, Right to Education State Advisory Council amongst others.

Professor, University of Delhi.

Apoorvanand

Apoorvanand is a professor of Hindi at the University of Delhi. He earned his Masters and PhD from Patna University and has worked on the development of Marxist Aesthetics in Hindi Literature.   Apoorvanand joined the Hindi Department at the University of Delhi where he was instrumental in redesigning the department’s academic program. Dr Apoorvanand was part of the core group that designed the National Curriculum Framework for School Education in 2005 and was a member of the National Focus Group on Teaching of Indian Languages formed by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT). He has worked with the Committee to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education in India under the Chairmanship of Professor Yash Pal. Created by the Government of India in 2008, the committee worked to craft a new vision plan for the sector of higher education in India. Additionally, Dr Apoorvanand has published two books of essays in literary criticism: Sundar ka Swapna and Sahitya ka Ekant. His critical essays have appeared in all major Hindi journals. Apart from his academic and literary writings, he also contributes columns in Indian newspapers and magazines on the issues of education, culture, communalism, violence and human rights.

Board Member and CEO, Jai Vakeel Foundation and Research Centre

Archana Chandra

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.

Founder and Research Director, Vidhi

Arghya Sengupta

Arghya’s  areas of specialisation are constitutional law and regulation of the digital economy. He has served on a number of government committees, including most recently the Justice B.N. Srikrishna-led committee of experts on a data protection framework for India. Arghya has a number of academic publications on the Supreme Court, Parliament, fundamental rights in leading law journals such as Law Quarterly Review and Public Law. He is also a columnist at The Telegraph, The Hindustan Times and The Times of India. He has most recently authored a book “Independence and Accountability of the Indian Higher Judiciary” (Cambridge, 2019) which builds on his doctoral work at Oxford University. Prior to founding Vidhi, he was at Oxford as a Lecturer in Administrative Law at Pembroke College. 

Chairman of the board of trustees of HelpAge International and Chairman of the Foundation

Arun Maira

Arun Maira is Chairman of the board of trustees of HelpAge International and Chairman of the Foundation for MSME Clusters. A thought leader on social and economic development and transformational change and leadership, he has authored books such as Listening for Well-Being: Conversations with People Not Like Us; Redesigning the Airplane While Flying: Reforming Institutions; Transforming Capitalism: Improving the World for Everyone; and Discordant Democrats: Five Steps to Consensus. Arun was a member of the Planning Commission of India from 2009 to 2014, and a member of the National Innovation Council. He was Chairman of The Boston Consulting Group in India from 2000-2008. Earlier, he worked with the Tata group for 25 years in senior management and board positions. He has been Chairman of the Quality Council of India, Save the Children India and the Axis Bank Foundation. He has served on the boards of the UN Global Compact and several social organisations and educational institutions in India and abroad. He has also served on the National Council of the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Senior Research Fellow, ISDM

Aruna Pandey

Aruna comes with deep engagement in domains of Natural Resource Governance, Institutions and Sustainable Livelihoods. In her 11 years of experiencing social change with communities, Aruna has worked with institutions like BRLF, TISS (Mumbai), SOAS – University of London, IIM – Ahmedabad, ISAP (New Delhi), and many others on various research, education/ training and IB assignments. She has received the Young Analyst Award by EU and DPG (Delhi), the prestigious M. K. Tata Prize and the NTPC gold medal for her dissertation at TISS (Mumbai) and the Felix Scholarship Trust award for her PhD at SOAS, amongst others. Now, she is working with ISDM as Sr. Research Fellow & Faculty.

Founder - CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW)

Arunabha Ghosh

Arunabha Ghosh is a public policy professional, adviser, author, columnist, and institution builder. As the founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW),he has led CEEW to one of South Asia’s leading policy research institutions (seven years in a row); and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks in 2013, 2014 and 2016. Arunabha advises governments, industry, civil society and international organisations around the world. This has included India’s Prime Minister’s Office, several ministries and state governments.

Philanthropist & Founder - CEO, The Convergence foundation

Ashish Dhawan

Ashish Dhawan is the founder and CEO of the Convergence Foundation (TCF), which is focused on accelerating India’s economic growth and development. He is also the chairperson of Ashoka University, a leading liberal arts university in India, and Central Square Foundation, a nonprofit foundation working to improve the quality of education for all children in India.

TCF incubates nonprofits focused on creating system-wide impact in the areas of economic growth, equality of opportunity, and sustainability. Its current portfolio includes organizations working on jobs and investment, rule of law, governance and state capacity, economic empowerment of women, science and technology, air pollution, unlocking philanthropic capital, and improving the effectiveness of nonprofits.

Before his second career as a philanthropist, Ashish was among India’s most successful private equity investors. He founded and ran ChrysCapital, the country’s leading private equity firm. Ashish graduated from Yale University and received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He is also on the India Advisory Board of Harvard and a member of Yale’s Development Council. He also serves on the governing board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

Founder, Antara Foundation (AF)

Ashok Alexander

Ashok is the founder of Antara Foundation (AF) an NGO focusing on public health delivery at scale. Before starting AF in 2013, Ashok led the creation and expansion of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s (BMGF) India operations from 2003 till 2012. Earlier, Ashok was a Director with McKinsey, and spent 17 years in the firm’s New York and India offices. Ashok brought his grounding in business to the social sector. The common thread in his experience at BMGF and AF has been ‘scale’. At BMGF, he led the creation of Avahan, the Foundation’s India HIV prevention initiative. Ashok has been Menschel Senior Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, a founding board member of the Public Health Foundation of India, and on the boards of CARE India and the America-India Foundation. He has degrees in Economics from St Stephen’s and the Delhi School of Economics, and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. He paints, working mainly on portraits, and is internationally rated in chess.

Chairman, Akshara Foundation

Ashok Kamath

Ashok Kamath has been the Managing Trustee of Akshara Foundation since 2003 and Chairman of the same since July 1, 2008. He has been actively involved in the strategic planning, analysis and expansion of programmes at Akshara Foundation since 2003. An alumnus of IIT-Bombay, he was formerly the Managing Director of the Indian operations of Analog Devices. He opted to leave behind a successful career in the corporate sector and involve himself in the development sector. His alma mater, IIT-Bombay, presented him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2013 for his various initiatives and contributions to the field of child education. Ashok is also a Founder Trustee of Pratham Books which aims to have A Book in Every Child’s Hand.

Director, School of Development, Azim Premji University

Ashok Sircar

Prof. Ashok Kumar Sircar, is currently the Director of the School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bangalore. He has over 34 years of experience spanning corporate sector, development sector, and teaching and training. For more than one and half decade, he has been involved in the development sector in programme planning and execution, monitoring and evaluation, research and policy advocacy in domains of local governance, land rights, and livelihoods. At the University, apart from heading the School, Ashok is involved in delivering popular courses on Gender in Livelihoods, Political Economy of Land, Understanding Development and Change, Imagining Development: From vision to action, for post-graduate students, as well as in-service professionals.

Founder, Bodhi Tree Foundation

Ashweetha Shetty

Ashweetha Shetty is the Founder of the Bodhi Tree Foundation, a non-profit with a mission to empower rural youth. Ashweetha, a first-generation graduate in her village in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district, had the opportunity to rewrite the possibilities in her life through education. A Young India Fellow, an Acumen India Fellow and an Ashoka Youth Venturer, she is passionate about bridging the gap between rural and urban India by encouraging and supporting youth to explore their potential through education.

Before starting Bodhi Tree Foundation, Ashweetha worked as a Community Engagement Coordinator with SughaVazhvu Healthcare, which provides primary healthcare in rural India. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Manonmaniam Sundaranar University. She has also been felicitated with the Working Women Achievers’ Award and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s State Youth Award in 2018.

Politician and Ex-Advisor to the Deputy CM, Delhi

Atishi Marlena

Atishi Marlena is a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, and is a member of the party’s top decision-making forum, the Political Affairs Committee (PAC). She is presently the Advisor to the Deputy CM of Delhi, primarily on Education. She has been spearheading the Delhi Government’s interventions in the field of education and works on a policy level on improving the effectiveness of various stakeholders involved in Government schools. Recipient of the prestigious Rhodes scholarship, she has done a Masters in Educational Research from the University of Oxford. She also worked as a History and English teacher at the Rishi Valley School for a brief period early on in her life. She was one of the key people who were involved in setting up of the Masters in Education program at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her academic work has primarily been in the field of alternative curriculum. A History Major from St Stephen’s College, Atishi spent over five years in a village close to Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, where she and her associates adopted a rural lifestyle and practiced organic farming for self-sufficient sustenance.

Executive Director of the SnO Center

Benedicte Faivre-Tavignot

Benedicte is affiliate professor of strategy at HEC Paris. She is Executive Director of the SnO Center (Society & Organizations Center), aiming at developing at HEC a new way of thinking about the role of business in society, be it through teaching or research. She is also co-founder of the HEC Chair of “Social Business / Enterprise and Poverty”, and of the HEC Paris Master of Science in Sustainable Development. Her research focus is on reverse innovation; she’s studying the processes through which social businesses and Base of the Pyramid business models can be a lever for innovation and strategic renewal. She received her PhD in Management Sciences in 2012 (University Lyon). She is an alumna of HEC (1988).

Co-Managing Director, Central Square Foundation

Bikkrama Daulet Singh

Bikkrama is Co-Managing Director at Central Square Foundation (CSF) and jointly leads the strategy, operations and external partnerships on early childhood education, EdTech, private school system and public governance, among others. He also oversees the advocacy, communications and research functions of the foundation. A 2011 Teach For India fellow, he has worked as an elementary school teacher in a municipal school in Delhi for two years. Bikkrama has previously been associated with Accenture in India on projects related to change management, performance improvement, cost reduction and supply chain. Bikkrama is an MBA from INSEAD and holds a degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Head of Outreach, PRS Legislative Research

Chakshu Roy

Chakshu leads legislative and civic engagement at PRS Legislative Research. The mission of PRS is to make the legislative process in the country better informed, more transparent and participatory. Chakshu and his colleagues provide research on legislation and policy to MPs and MLAs to further indepth debate on issues in our legislatures. They track the working of Parliament, State Legislatures and their legislators, make the work easily available and understandable. Chakshu and his team also anchor the prestigious Legislative Assistant for Members of Parliament Fellowship. He is an expert on parliamentary procedures and writes and speaks extensively on issues relating to the institution

Director - Strategic Partnerships, Dream a Dream

Chandra Sekhar

Chandra Sekhar is a Financial services leader with more than 25 years of experience in Banking and Insurance globally, working with AIG, Standard Chartered Bank & Bank of America, before deciding to transition into the social sector. He previously worked with AIG Middle East as Director / Profit Centre Head, held P&L responsibility for Consumer Insurance business for 9 countries in the Middle East and North Africa Region. He is an IVY-League management graduate who blends sophisticated business strategy with interpersonal relationships and inspiring leadership to build long term strategic partnerships. Highly passionate about empowering youth with 21st-century skills. He is also an ILSS Alumnus, from the Cohort 6 of the ILSS Leadership Program.

President, SDSN Association

Chandrika Bahadur

Chandrika Bahadur is the President of the SDSN Association. Previously, she was Director of Education Initiatives at the UN SDSN. From 2008-2011, she was the advisor to the Chairman and Managing Director at Reliance Industries, where she helped set up Reliance Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic foundation focusing on areas of education, health, rural development, and urban renewal. From 2001-2008, Chandrika worked with the United Nations in different roles. In her last assignment, she was a Policy Advisor at UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy in New York, working in Africa to help Ministries of Finance and Planning align their strategies to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), across 20 countries. From 2003-2006, she was part of the leadership team of the UN Millennium Project, an advisory group convened by the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to recommend strategies for the MDGs. From 2001-2002 she worked on trade and HIV and AIDS programs at the United Nations. She has prior teaching experience at Harvard and Columbia universities. Chandrika holds a Masters degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a BA (Honours) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Director, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation India LLP

Debasish Mitter

President & CEO PYXERA GLOBAL

Deirdre White

Deirdre White is a globally recognized leader in building tri-sector partnerships to address the world’s most pressing challenges. As CEO of PYXERA Global, she has led the transformation of the organization to one that maximizes impact through strong and strategic partnerships. Prior to PYXERA Global, Deirdre was a Senior Manager in the Public Sector Practice at Arthur D. Little, Inc. Deirdre is a member of the MIT Ideas Global Challenge Advisory Board and the Bretton Woods Committee, and is an alumna of the Aspen Institute’s Socrates Program. She continues to be recognized for her impact in the field and CR Magazine lauded her as a CR Superstar in 2014. Deirdre drives the discussion of new strategies for global engagement and has been a featured speaker at the Shared Value Leadership Summit, Wharton Africa Business Forum, Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network, and US Department of Commerce’s Discover Global Markets. She has served for multiple years as regional judge for the HULT Prize. Previously, Deirdre was co-facilitator  of the Clinton Global Initiative’s Employee Engagement Action Network. She also participated in Rockefeller Foundation’s renowned Bellagio Initiative and the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread’s Leadership Forum for Global Citizen Diplomacy.

Author and Historian

Dilip Simeon

Dilip Simeon  is  the founding member of Association of Indian Labour Historians and former Professor of History, Ramjas College. He has been a visiting scholar at the universities of  Surat, Sussex, Chicago, Leiden and Princeton. He has also  worked on a conflict-mitigation project with Oxfam; and is now the chairperson of the Aman Trust, which works to reduce violent conflicts. His thesis, ‘The Politics of Labour Under Late Colonialism’, was published in 1995; and his first novel, ‘Revolution Highway’ in September, 2010.

Co-Founder, Nirantar

Dipta Bhog

Dipta Bhog has worked on gender and education for close to three decades. She has worked as a journalist and women’s rights activist. She co-founded Nirantar, a Centre for Gender and Education in Delhi, and has extensive experience of working on women’s literacy, adult and girls education and rural journalism at the level of program design, implementation, policy and impact. She coordinated a five-state study titled Textbook Regimes that analysed school textbooks from a feminist lens and has worked on writing textbooks for both national and state governments. More recently, her research work focused on women leaders from rural areas and small towns who run non-governmental organizations. She redesigned and presently conducts CREA’s Institute on Feminist leadership and Movement Building in South Asia and East Africa.

Co-Founder, Growth & Strategic Partnerships Lead, Alohomora Education Foundation

Divakar Sankhla

Divakar has close to 20 years of diverse experience across various sectors. Graduating from IIM Lucknow with an MBA degree in 2007, he spent his initial career in the corporate world with PepsiCo and Citibank across Sales and Distribution management, as well as strategic business analytics roles. His transition to the social sector happened with the Teach for India fellowship. Post that, he started his own social venture and co-founded Alohomora Education Foundation- which empowers youth from underserved communities to build thriving careers for themselves, at scale. He currently leads the strategy building, organization development, strategic partnerships and finance at his Foundation.

Feminist, Writer and Activist

Farah Naqvi

Farah Naqvi, an alumna of Columbia University, is a feminist, writer and activist. For over 25 years, she has worked on gender, caste, and minority issues, towards justice, equality, democratic rights and freedom from violence. Her work spans a range of media and locations – from remote villages to public policy spaces – serving as Member, National Advisory Council or NAC, (2010-2014); Member, Post-Sachar Evaluation Committee (Kundu Committee), Ministry of Minority Affairs (2013-2014); Member, Planning Commission Steering Committee on Empowerment of Minorities, for India’s 12th five-year plan (2011-2012); Member, Planning Commission Steering Committee for Women and Child Development, for the 11th five-year plan (2007-2008). She has also worked on law reform including the 2013 Criminal Law Amendment Act on sexual violence laws; draft law on communal and targeted violence; amendments to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act; amendments to include domestic workers in sexual harassment law – all entailing advocacy with governments and and Parliamentary Standing Committees. She has co-authored fact-finding reports on situations of civil and communal strife including in Chhattisgarh (War in the Heart of India), Muzaffarnagar (30 Days and Counting and A Human Tragedy Unfolds), Gujarat (Survivors Speak & Threatened Existence).

Independent Journalist and News Anchor

Faye D’Souza

Faye D’Souza is an Indian journalist and former television news anchor, currently running her own independent news venture. She previously worked as the executive editor of Mirror Now, which is owned by The Times Group. She rose to fame with the show The Urban Debate on Mirror Now, where she anchored on subjects of corruption, communal violence and independent press. She received the RedInk Award for ‘Journalist of the Year’ in 2018

Theatre Director

Feisal Alkazi

Educationist, social activist, author, master trainer and theatre director Feisal Alkazi lives and works in New Delhi. He has, over the past 42 years, directed over 200 plays and carved out a niche for himself in the Indian theatre scene chiefly with the group Ruchika. Feisal has also worked extensively in the area of children’s theatre, regularly directing for schools across India and the Little Actors Club of Ruchika. He has directed over 100 children’s plays in Delhi, Jaipur, Chennai, Moradabad, Chandigarh and Gwalior. His book for children on theatre, Rang Biranga Rangmanch, published by National Book Trust, has sold over 30,000 copies. For television, Feisal has directed two serials and 32 documentaries and short-films. Among other awards, he was given the Sanskriti Award for outstanding contribution to the theatre in 1987. In his capacity as a professional social worker, Feisal founded and headed Ankur, Society for Alternative in Education for ten years. As a master trainer ,Feisal has worked with various organizations and some of his trainings have included theatre based activities as well.

Director, Seeds of Awareness and 17000 ft Foundation

Fiona Miranda

Dr. Fiona Dias Miranda has a Doctorate in Microbiology from the USA, where she was a Professor and later, at St. Xaviers College, Mumbai. Her teaching years at University led her to observe that addressing aspects of sexual education in young adolescents was equally important along with formal education. Thus she started her series of – Reproductive and Sexual Health Awareness since 2008 for adolescents, parents and teachers. She serves as director, faculty and facilitator with the NGO Seeds of Awareness and Research Foundation – an organisation that does Comprehensive Sexuality Education. She also serves as faculty in Anatomy and Reproductive Health, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Currently, Fiona is also a director with the NGO 17000 Ft Foundation which works towards transforming lives in rural villages of Ladakh primarily via education. She has also been associated with a number of NGOs in education and health in multiple capacities including fundraising; Muktangan, Akanksha, SNEHA, in Mumbai and the Sunbird Trust in the NorthEast States of India to name a few. She plays the role of a mentor in Take Charge- A Mumbai based mentorship program.Fiona is passionate about Music and Travelling which, she believes, keep her energised and excited about life.

Founder and CEO, Samagra

Gaurav Goel

Gaurav holds a dual degree (B.Tech.+M.Tech.) in Computer Science & Engineering from IIT Delhi and an MBA from IIM Calcutta. Immediately after completing his studies, Gaurav joined McKinsey & Company as a management consultant where he worked across sectors and geographies, solving diverse corporate problem statements. Gaurav’s desire to create impact at scale by engaging with the governance process led him to embark on an entrepreneurial journey. Gaurav founded Samagra in 2012 and has been leading it since inception. He has extensive experience of working with senior political and bureaucratic leaders, conceptualizing and delivering large scale systemic transformation across governance domains. He has shaped Samagra’s values and Gaurav Goel approach to impact and continues to drive it into the future.

Director of Strategy, Nilekani Philanthropies

Gautam John

Gautam John is the Director of Strategy at Nilekani Philanthropies. Prior to this, he spent several years in the development sector and was a TED India Fellow in 2009. Before his time in the non-profit sector, he was an entrepreneur in the food industry for six years and graduated from the National Law School in 2002.

Founder, Score Foundation

George Abraham

George Abraham is the founder of Score Foundation, which seeks to change attitudes towards the blind, and Project Eyeway, a knowledge resource on living a life with blindness. He has been visually impaired since the age of 10 months, following a near fatal attack of meningitis. A visit to a school for the blind in 1988 inspired George to switch from a career in advertising: he launched cricket for the blind in India in 1990 and followed this up by setting up the World Blind Cricket Council. He organised the inaugural cricket World Cup for the blind in 1998, in New Delhi. In 2013, he produced a 13-part TV serial Nazar Ya Nazariya featuring over 39 stories about possibilities and potential. George travels extensively in India and abroad, speaking to varied audiences about his journey as a social entrepreneur and as a person with disability. An Ashoka Fellow, George was conferred the CF Andrews Distinguished Alumnus Award by St Stephen’s College in 2015. He carried the Olympic Torch at Atlanta 1996 and was conferred the Sanskriti Award in 1995.

Founder & Chief Executive, SELCO Foundation

Harish Hande

Harish Hande is a social entrepreneur with over 25 years of grassroots experience in meeting the energy needs of underserved populations. He is also the founder and chief executive of SELCO India, a pioneering last mile rural energy enterprise based in India since the early nineties.

SELCO sees the pressing need to develop a fertile environment to enhance sustainable energy access solutions for the poor. This energy access increases incomes, improves quality of life, and alleviates poverty, turning energy consumers into asset owners. Last mile energy solutions have clear commercial viability, and SELCO works to combine technical and non-technical aspects focused on alleviating poverty in a sustainable manner. SELCO through its various initiative has been able to impact over 2 million people.

Harish is a graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and holds a master’s and Ph.D from University of Massachusetts, USA. He is also the recipient of many national and international awards, including the reputed Zayed Future Energy Prize in 2018 and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship 2018. In 2011, Harish was conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award in recognition of his vision to catalyse development outcomes via sustainable energy.

Director, Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy, Ashoka University

Ingrid Srinath

Ingrid Srinath is the Director of the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka University. She has been a passionate advocate for human rights, social justice and civil society for the past 19 years. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, Ingrid transitioned from her 12-year career in advertising to the non-profit sector in 1998 with CRY (Child Rights and You), where she was CEO from 2004-08. She served as Secretary General from 2008-12 at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, an influential global network of non-profit organisations. She was Executive Director of CHILDLINE India Foundation, India’s emergency helpline for children in distress and, most recently, CEO of Hivos India, the Indian arm of the Dutch global NGO. She has served on the advisory boards of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Development Cooperation Forum (UN DCF), the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Young Lives project at Oxford University, Alliance magazine, Hasirudala, Danamojo and the Prajnya Trust and on the boards of WINGS, the INGO Accountability Charter, The Rules, Public Interest Registry and Majlis Law.

Advisory Board Member, DMICDC (the Delhi Mumbai industrial corridor) and Janaagraha

Ireena Vittal

Ireena Vittal, a former partner with McKinsey & Co, is a recognized thought partner to companies looking to scale profitable businesses in emerging markets. She serves on the boards of select companies such as Wipro, Godrej, Titan, Taj and Compass, and on the boards of several non-profits such as PATH, Soros Economic Fund, Educate Girls, Hindustan Unilever Foundation, VIdhi Legal Services, Water Aid, among others. Ireena also serves governments and public institutions to design and implement solutions core to Indias’ development. Ireena co-led the Economic Development Interest Group in McKinsey and has served the government, public institutions and the private sector in urban and agri-related issues. She is co-author of the McKinsey Global Institute report on Indian urbanization (India’s Urban Awakening: Building Inclusive Cities, Sustaining Economic Growth), the first integrated report on Indian agriculture (FAIDA) and on building rural infrastructure & services (Bharat Nirman), working closely with the relevant ministry in New Delhi. Currently, she is on the advisory board of DMICDC (the Delhi Mumbai industrial corridor), supports the World Bank on their urban and NRLM efforts and is on the advisory board of Janaagraha. Prior to joining McKinsey, Ireena worked with Nestle and with MaxTouch (now Vodafone). Ireena graduated in electronics and has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Chairperson, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER)

Isher Ahluwalia

Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia, an eminent Indian economist, is Chairperson of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), a leading think-tank based in New Delhi engaged in policy oriented research. At ICRIER, she led the Research and Capacity Building Program on the Challenges of Urbanisation in India from March 2013 to March 2015. She was Chairperson of the High Powered Expert Committee on Urban Infrastructure and Services, the Government of India, from 2008 to 2011. Dr Ahluwalia has written a number of books, the latest being “Transforming Our Cities: Postcards of Change”. She is also the co-editor together with Prof. IMD Little of “India’s Economic Reforms and Development: Essays for Manmohan Singh”, which is an updated version of the original volume published in 1998. She is on the Board of Trustees of a number of national and international research institutions. Dr. Ahluwalia received her B.A. (Hons) from Presidency College, Calcutta University, M.A. from the Delhi School of Economics, and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), all in economics. She was awarded Padma Bhushan by the President of India in the year 2009 for her services in the field of education and literature.

Co-Founded and Director of SolarArise

James Abraham

James Abraham is Co-Founded and Director of SolarArise, which focuses on financing, owning and managing utility-scale solar power plants. James serves on the boards of LnT Water, Vistaar Financial Services, SmartPower India, and is an Advisor to Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. He also serves on the board of International Justice Mission which rescues women and children from slavery and violence.

Global CEO, Magic Bus

Jayant Rastogi

Jayant Rastogi joined Magic Bus as the Chief Executive Officer, India in September 2016. Recently, he was elevated as the Global CEO. Jayant comes with 25+ years of corporate experience and was previously the CEO of Motorola Solutions South Asia and has been in leadership positions at an Asia Pacific level for the last 15 years. Post Motorola, he had a stint as an investor and entrepreneur co-founding two technology-led ventures – one a social venture focused on providing affordable healthcare for the less privileged and the other an aggregator platform for commercial transportation.

At Magic Bus, Jayant has established a strong sense of culture, passion, accountability and responsibility towards the cause, ensuring that each of our 2000 odd employees strives to deliver a high quality and impactful program. In the last two years at Magic Bus, Jayant has built a highly engaged and dynamic team consisting of both the development and corporate sector talent. In his journey at Magic Bus he has automated business operations bringing strong governance, efficiency, rigour besides deepening the impact.

Senior Lecturer, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago

John Burrows

John Burrows is a senior lecturer in leadership at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and an associate fellow at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. He has also been associated with the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He also serves on the advisory board of Profitable Ideas Exchange, which builds communities of senior executives to tackle many of the world’s greatest challenges. Before joining academia, John has worked in the public, private and development sectors. He has worked with companies like Accenture and held senior roles in sales and marketing at enterprise software companies including Siebel and Oracle. John received a PhD and MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI)

K. Srinath Reddy

Prof. K. Srinath Reddy is President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and formerly headed the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He served as the First Bernard Lown Visiting Professor of Cardiovascular Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is presently an Adjunct Professor at Harvard and Emory & Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney. He has served on many WHO expert panels & has been the President of the World Heart Federation. He chaired the High Level Expert Group on Universal Health Coverage, for the Planning Commission of India. Prof. Reddy is a member of the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, established to assist the United Nations in developing the post-2015 goals and chairs the Thematic Group on Health in the SDSN. Prof. Reddy is a member of the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. He has published more than 480 scientific papers. His several honours include WHO Director General’s Award and Luther Terry Medal of American Cancer Society for Outstanding contributions to global tobacco control and the Queen Elizabeth Medal for health promotion. He was conferred Padma Bhushan by the President of India in 2005.

Economist, Professor - University of California, San Diego

Karthik Muralidharan

Karthik Muralidharan is a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, where he also holds the Tata Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Economics. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), an Affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a Member of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) network, an Affiliate at the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), and a Research Affiliate with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).
Prof. Muralidharan’s primary research interests include development, public, and labour economics. Specific topics of interest include education, health, and social protection; measuring quality of public service delivery; program evaluation; and improving the effectiveness of public spending (with a focus on developing countries).

Executive Director, Asha Impact

Kartik Desai

Kartik leads Asha Impact, an impact investing and policy advocacy organisation operating a multi-family office for Indian business leaders and philanthropists to jointly invest in social enterprises and engage with the government. He has led investments into and serves on the boards of start-ups across housing, financial services, waste, education and technology. Kartik is a board member of the Impact Investors Council, member of the PM’s ‘Champions of Change’ group of young CEOs and member of Niti Aayog’s working group on ‘Housing for All’ and ‘Swachh Bharat’. Prior to founding Asha in 2014, Kartik has a decade of experience in venture capital, entrepreneurship, investment banking and international development in India and the US. He helped set up two $60 million impact investment funds, Lok Capital II and Aavishkaar Frontier Fund, in between founding QNA, India’s first open-data polling platform for citizen engagement on national debates. Prior to joining the impact investment industry in 2007, Kartik worked for three years with DSP Merrill Lynch and also consulted for the United Nations Development Program and Rockefeller Foundation while studying in New York. Kartik has a Bachelors degree in Finance from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a Masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University (SIPA).

Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Kenwyn K. Smith

Dr Kenwyn Smith is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and the Director of Penn’s Master’s Programme in Nonprofit/NGO Leadership. Dr Smith teaches leadership, group and intergroup dynamics, organizational politics, change management in three of Penn’s schools: the School of Social Policy & Practice, the Wharton School and the Fels Institute of Government (Arts and Sciences). Dr Smith is an international scholar in the fields of group and intergroup dynamics, organizational change and leadership. His research experience ranges from prisons to schools, from businesses to health care institutions, from state enterprises to social entrepreneurial activities, from oppressed black townships in South Africa to agencies creating sustainable livelihoods in rural India, from pharmaceuticals in Belgium to financial services in urban America, from the World Bank to a community in Philadelphia wrestling with the anguish of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Founder and CEO Peepul

Kruti Bharucha

Kruti Bharucha is currently the Founder and CEO of Peepul India, an education non-profit that works closely with governments to ensure the delivery of a high-quality education in government schools so that every child is able to achieve their potential. Peepul currently runs a network of 3 schools in South Delhi directly impacting 1,000 students, trains and builds the capacity of 450 government teachers in 105 schools indirectly impacting 15,000 pupils. Peepul’s Vision 2023 is to operate in four geographies through interventions that will include running exemplar schools, training and capacity building of school leaders and teachers and support district-wide education transformation efforts at the state level.

Board Member, Reflexive Lenses Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

KS Narendran

Narendran is on the board of Reflexive Lenses Consulting Pvt. Ltd., an organisation committed to proliferating the use of the EUM framework and related tools for individual and organisation development. Most recently, Narendran has been associated with Flame TAO Knoware Pvt. Ltd. as Principal Consultant, focusing on organisation assessment, organisation culture building, leadership development for senior management, building HR systems, etc. A Fellow of Sumedhas Academy for Human Context, he has also served as the Executive Director of Sumedhas for 4 years, till October 2012.  Previously, he has worked for organisations like Ma Foi Management Consultants, Escorts Limited, Kancor Flavors, Arvind Mills and Sterling Resorts with managerial experience spanning from factory personnel management, management development, corporate HR and organisation development. Narendran has also been associated with The Other Media, established in 1992 as a Centre for supporting people’s organisations and movements.

Narendran is certified in the use of the California Psychology Inventory (CPI), the FIRO-B, and the EUM –I and EUM – O, profiling tools that he uses in his work with individuals and organisations. He holds a post-graduate in personnel management and industrial relations from the Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai.

Chairperson and Co-Founder, Dastkar

Laila Tyabji

Laila Tyabji is a craft designer, writer, and Chairperson and Co-Founder of Dastkar. She has been working with grassroots artisans all over India for over four decades, creating new livelihood avenues through craft for pastoral & marginalised communities like the bonded labourers in Bihar, displaced villages in Ranthambore, embroidery artisans in drought-hit Kutch and Banaskantha, tribals in Orissa and victims of insurgency in Kashmir.

Laila studied art in Baroda & Japan, & has worked as a freelance designer in textiles, graphics, interiors, and the theatre prior to Dastkar. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2012.

Social Scientist & Advisor, Sangat & JAGOR

Late Kamla Bhasin

A social scientist by training, Kamla Bhasin has been actively engaged with issues related to development, gender, education, media and others since 1970. Currently, she works with Sangat – A Feminist Network as Adviser as well as JAGORI, A Women’s Resource and Training Centre and Jagori Rural Charitable Trust as an active member. She is the South Asia Coordinator of One Billion Rising, a global campaign to end violence against women and girls; Co-Chair of the worldwide network Peace Women Across the Globe; and member of South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR). Prior to this, she worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for 27 years. She has written extensively on gender, women’s empowerment, participatory and sustainable development, participatory training, media and communication.

Chairman, Centre for Civil Society and CORO

Luis Miranda

Luis is Chairman of CORO and Centre for Civil Society. He is also actively involved with other non-profits including SNEHA, CARE India, Educate Girls, and Take Charge. He spends his time these days connecting the dots for amazing social entrepreneurs, using his network to help the organisations he is connected with. Luis is also Senior Advisor to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure and Advisor to the Nadathur Group. Prior to this, he was involved with setting up two highly successful companies – HDFC Bank and IDFC Private Equity. He is on Chicago Booth’s Global Advisory Board and Social Enterprise Initiative’s Advisory Board and writes a blog for Forbes India. Luis received an MBA from the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Director, India Country Office Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

M Hari Menon

M Hari Menon leads the India Office of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He also oversees the foundation’s work in South and South-East Asia. In his role as director of the India Office, Hari is in charge of managing the foundation’s work areas in India, with an objective to improve conditions of family health, sanitation, digital financial inclusion, agriculture, and gender equality. He leads these efforts to advance the country’s health and development goals by working closely with India’s central and state governments, local and global non-profits, community groups, researchers, and the private sector.

Hari has been associated with the foundation since 2006, with a brief role outside the foundation between 2011 and 2013. Prior to the India Country Director role, he was leading the teams that focus on policy and advocacy and program communications. Since 2017, he has also been overseeing the foundation’s policy and government relations for South and South-East Asia.

From 2011 to 2013, Hari served as strategic philanthropy adviser to Rohini Nilekani. He also has experience in the consumer goods and information technology sectors with companies like Colgate Palmolive and Infosys Technologies. Hari holds a graduate degree in business management from XLRI School of Management, Jamshedpur and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the College of Engineering & Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Professor of History, Ashoka University

Mahesh Rangarajan

Mahesh Rangarajan has a BA in History from the University of Delhi. He has an MA and PhD from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He has been Professor in Modern Indian History at the University of Delhi and also taught at the universities of Cornell and Jadavpur and at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru. He has also served as Director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. His first book, Fencing the Forest was published in 1996. His most recent work is Nature and Nation (2015). He also authored India’s Wildlife History (2001) and co-authored, Towards Coexistence: People, Parks and Wildlife (2000). Two recent co-edited works are Nature Without Borders (2014) and Shifting Ground ( 2014).

Key Client Manager, Global Pro Bono, Director, Center for Citizen Diplomacy

Matt Clark

Matt Clark leads global engagement programs and directs the Center for Citizen Diplomacy at PYXERA Global. He designs and implements projects to promote and celebrate person-to-person interactions across cultures that result in mutual exchange and create shared understanding. He is also a training facilitator of tri-sector partnership workshops, where leaders from the public, private, and social sectors are enabled with tools to effectively design and implement collaborative projects that deliver on shared goals. In the Global Pro Bono practice of PYXERA Global, Matt designs corporate social responsibility strategies for JPMorgan Chase, IBM, PepsiCo, and GSK, working with teams around the world that deliver solutions for issues ranging from food security and transportation infrastructure to women’s economic empowerment and workforce development. Prior to joining PYXERA Global, Matt worked in Japan with local school districts to develop English language curriculum and international education initiatives that more purposefully connect Japanese students to the world.

Associate Professor, Sociology and Social Anthropology, Ashoka University

Mekhala

Founder & CEO, Udhyam Learning Foundation

Mekin Maheshwari

Mekin Maheshwari is extremely passionate about discovering & unleashing human potential beyond limits. In 2017, he started Udhyam Learning Foundation, a not-for-profit 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.

Founder DESTA Research LLP

Mihir Mathur

Mihir is an interdisciplinary researcher working on sustainability and climate change issues to develop systemic solutions. His expertise is in the areas of Systems Thinking and System Dynamics Modeling, Group Model Building, Climate Change Adaptation and Natural Resource Management. Mihir began his career in banking and stock markets, and moved into the world of sustainability research in 2009. He worked in the Climate Change Adaptation Programme of Watershed Organisation Trust, Pune, before moving to TERI, New Delhi. At TERI he worked extensively on policy research using systems thinking and system dynamics modeling. Mihir currently works as a consultant with TERI, ATREE and FES and is visiting faculty at Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS), Hyderabad, Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), Noida and School for International Training (SIT), Jaipur. He has previously been a visiting faculty at Sadhana Center for Management and Leadership Development (SCMLD), Pune. Mihir did his BCom from MS University, Vadodara and Post Graduation in Finance from SCMLD. He has written book chapters, journal papers and presented his work in several conferences worldwide.

Co-founder & CEO Red Stone Films

Mohammad Irfan Dar

Mohammad Irfan Dar is a media entrepreneur, visual storyteller & filmmaker, heading Red Stone Films since 2012. RSF was originally created as a creative media agency & film production company to help organizations create their brand identities. The organization, further evolved as a strategic partner for bi-lateral organizations, international cooperation agencies, international & national development sector organizations to use communication mediums for addressing developmental issues & creating strong visual messages. Irfan is a passionate proponent of children’s issues. In his independent capacity, since the last ten years, he has been working as a facilitating educator with children and young adults in difficult circumstances of conflict, lack of opportunities, abuse and livelihood issues. His creative methodology of using films & comprehensive art spaces has given these children access to opportunity for expression, freedom of thought and non-formal rehabilitative restoration. He studied filmmaking at AJK MCRC Jamia Millia Islamia & liberal arts & leadership from Ashoka University’s Young India Fellowship and was awarded the Commonwealth Professional Fellowship in 2014 for Films/cinema, conflict transformation & peacebuilding in the UK.

Founder, Crossover Catalyst

Moomal Mehta

Moomal has 16 years of experience with Citibank in leadership roles across Delhi, Chicago and Bombay. After Citi, she was the Deputy Director at Asia Society India Centre for 5 years, responsible for programming, fundraising and key stakeholder relationships. Moomal has a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta.

Crossover Catalyst is a search firm for the social sector. It is rooted in the belief that non-profits and social enterprises play a critical role in solving some of India’s most pressing problems, and attracting high quality, leadership-level talent from the outside the sector could be an important enabler in creating scale and enhancing impact for many of these organizations. They currently serve over 75 impact sector organizations for their senior people needs and have transitioned 23 individuals into leadership roles in the sector. Crossover Catalyst is founded by Moomal Mehta.

Vice President (Operations), Ashoka

Munish Sehrawat

As Vice President (Operations) at Ashoka, Munish leads the Finance, Human Resource, Information Technology, Administration, and Project Management functions. Munish brings with him over 18 years of broad-based leadership experience across three leading organizations – HSBC, Citibank and ANZ. He has served as COO (Human Resource) Asia Pacific and COO, Oman at HSBC leading various initiatives related to business transformation, operational and service excellence. As a global citizen, Munish has lived and worked in India, Middle East and Hong Kong. He has walked 100 Kms in the Sahara Desert as part of a charity challenge, raising funds for Water Aid. Munish is an MBA from IRMA and holds an honours degree in Journalism from University of Delhi.

Founder-Director, Innobridge Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

Mustafa Moochhala

Mustafa Moocchala is the Founder-Director of Innobridge Consulting Pvt. Ltd. and a seasoned trainer on organisation development for the non-profit and for-profit sector. He consults with organisations on HR strategy and policy, structuring and culture building. He also works on specific sub-systems in human resources and has experience in designing and running development centres, and creating and using competency frameworks. He is an associate with CCL, USA and Bath Consulting, UK for conducting leadership programs across Asia. His areas of interest are CSR and executive coaching. He has previously worked with Pradan, promoting livelihoods in marginalised communities. He has also been associated with companies like Ma Foi and Modi Xerox. He is an alumnus of XLRI, Jamshedpur.

Visiting Scientist, The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health

Nachiket Mor

Nachiket Mor has a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. His current work is principally focused on the design of national and regional health systems. He is currently a Visiting Scientist at The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy at IIIT Bangalore. He is also a member of the Health Insurance Advisory Committee of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India and a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Reimagining Health Care in India.

He was a member of the Planning Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Universal Health Care, the Primary Care Task Force of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Health Commission for the State of Himachal Pradesh, and the Standing Committee on Health Systems Strengthening at the National Academy of Medicine in Washington DC. He also helped create a new model for comprehensive primary care which was implemented by SughaVazhvu Healthcare in remote rural parts of Tamil Nadu and has informed the design of, among others, Government of India’s Health and Wellness Centres.

Co-Founder, The Civic Response Team (CRT), CARPE and Ecosattva Environmental Solutions Pvt LTD

Natasha Zarine

Natasha is the Co-Founder of three organizations, The Civic Response Team (CRT) – a think-tank and consultancy firm focused on civic challenges, The Center for Applied Research and People & Engagement (CARPE) – a Sec 8 Not for profit company with a vision to achieve sustainable and inclusive cities, town and villages, and Ecosattva Environmental Solutions Pvt LTD – a company that provides eco-sensible solutions to environmental challenges through waste water treatment and green cover management.  Her organizations have scaled tremendously over the past 3 years, with operations spread across 7 cities across India, Argentina and Indonesia. Ecosattva has been awarded as one of India & top start-ups by the Maharahatra State Start-up Society. Natasha is also a Young India Fellow, 2013.

Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Dasra

Neera Nundy

Neera is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Dasra. She leads eco-system building initiatives and facilitates key partnerships with global leaders like Harvard University, Stanford University and USAID India to accelerate social impact. She has been instrumental in enabling capacity building for nonprofits through the launch of Dasra Social Impact Leadership Program with Harvard Business Publishing, a first-of-its-kind executive education program for social sector leaders in India and has supported the development of over 70 social sector research reports, driving USD 44 million in funding for hundreds of nonprofits. She has been recognized for her work through Dasra by several prestigious awards like the Canadian Governor General’s Medallion for her dedication to addressing India’s critical development challenges.

Neera holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and is an Indian Leadership Fellow with Anantha-Aspen Institute.

Country Director, PATH India

Neeraj Jain

Neeraj Jain is the Country Director of PATH India. A nonprofit organisation that has been working towards strengthening public health in India for more than four decades. Neeraj oversees all operations in the country and serves as a liaison between the office in India, PATH headquarters, donors, partners, and national-level ministries. PATH has also been extensively supporting various governments in providing technical support for COVID-19 response, and advising on testing, treating and managing the outbreak.

Prior to joining PATH, Neeraj led WaterAid India through a dynamic phase of transition as its chief executive. He was instrumental in the setup of the India Sanitation Coalition as part of the governing committee and heads the Engagement with Central and State Governments Task Force for them. The coalition, launched in June 2015, is leading the sanitation conversations in India by bringing together organizations and individuals to find sustainable solutions for sanitation.

Chief Internet Saahti, Foundation for Rural Entrepreneurship Development (FREND)

Neha Barjatya

Neha Barjatya is the Chief Internet Saathi at Foundation for Rural Entrepreneurship Development (FREND), a non-profit entity promoted by Tata Trusts and supported by Google to help build a sustainable model of livelihood for women across rural India through a unique digital literacy program called Internet Saathi. She is currently working under a secondment by Google to help set up and lead the vision for FREND.

Prior to this, Neha led business and brand marketing initiatives at Google in India, where she launched several projects and campaigns focused on driving the growth of Internet in the country, including the launch of the Internet Saathi program.

She is passionate about technology and strongly believes that it can play a transformative role in improving the lives of women across India. Her decision to lead the efforts of FREND underlines her commitment towards gender equity and creating opportunities for women to succeed.

Prior to Google, Neha has worked across companies like Zee Turner, Viacom18 and Lowe Lintas. She is a graduate in Economics from Lady Shriram College in New Delhi, following which she joined the Mudra Institute of Communication Ahmedabad.

Human Rights Activist, Co-Founder - Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)

Nikhil Dey

Nikhil Dey is a social activist and co-founder of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI). Since 1990, he has been actively involved in the struggles of the poor for justice and human rights, including grass-root struggles for land, right to food, payment of minimum wages, the RTI Movement and NREGA. Nikhil has also played a prominent part in the ongoing effort by people’s movements to build institutions of participatory democracy. He has been a member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, the State Employment Guarantee Council of Rajasthan, as well as several official committees related to the formulation of policy for rural development. He received the K L Bordia Award for social service in 2013.

Programme Director PRADAN

Nivedita Narain

Nivedita joined PRADAN in 1987, and has held a variety of portfolios over the years. She started as an executive based in Kishangarh Bas in rural Rajasthan, organising the first self-help groups in the country. She has led PRADAN’s Human Resources Development unit, and Research and Resource Centre. Nivedita’s professional expertise includes rural development, organisation behaviour and human resource development, women’s empowerment, livelihoods development, and group processes. She has undertaken consulting assignments for organisation development.  She is a certified trainer in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, training of trainers, and entrepreneurial motivation trainer at NIESBUD (National Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development). She is on the boards of nonprofits and scholar programmes, and is a founder member of the Institute for Group Facilitators. Nivedita holds a PhD in Management Studies from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi; a Master’s in Professional Studies in International Development Policy from Cornell University in the USA; a Post-graduate Diploma in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management Anand.

Founder-Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation

Osama Manzar

Osama Manzar is a global leader on the mission of eradicating information poverty from India and global south using digital tools through Digital Empowerment Foundation, an organisation he founded in 2002. A British Chevening Scholar and an International Visitors Leadership Program Fellow of the US State Department, Osama is a social entrepreneur, author, columnist, impact speaker, angel investor, mentor, and sits on several government and policy committees in India and on international organisations working in the areas of Internet, access, and digital inclusion. Osama has instituted 10 awards for recognising digital innovations for development in South Asia. He is a Member of Advisory Board for Alliance for Affordable Internet; Member of Licensing Committee for Community Radio in India at the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting; Member of Working Group –  IT for Masses at Ministry of IT in India. He is Member of the Board at Association of Progressive Communication; World Summit Award; Ibtada; and Society for Labour & Development.

Author, Journalist, Magsaysay Awardee Founder - Editor, People's Archive of Rural India (PARI)

P Sainath

Magsaysay Prize -winner P. Sainath is a journalist who focuses on social and economic inequality, deprivation and poverty, particularly in rural India. Sainath was McGraw Professor of Writing at Princeton University in Fall 2012 and has been conferred doctorates by two other Universities. In India, he has taught journalism for 30 years. His book, ‘Everybody Loves A Good Drought’, was declared a Penguin Classic in 2013 and is in its 50th print run. In 2014, Sainath launched the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), a unique online project on rural India, with its 833 million people, speaking 780 living languages and a bewildering array of stories, occupations, arts, music, culture, and a lot more. PARI, which publishes in 12 Indian languages, is a totally independent multimedia digital platform creating a unique database, the only one of its kind that can lay claim to journalism representative of every region and section of rural people in this incredibly diverse nation.

Regional Director at The Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (Stanford SEED)

P.R. Ganapathy

PR Ganpathy is the Regional Director at The Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (known as Stanford Seed) leading the India operations for Stanford Seed, working with entrepreneurs and SMEs to strengthen their businesses, gain traction, and scale their impact.He is  a well-known funder and incubator of social enterprises, and a co-founder of the Menterra Social Impact Fund. He is also the co-founder of Haqdarshak, a social enterprise. Prior to moving to the development sector in 2011, he worked at large Indian corporations and co- founded a US – headquartered venture-funded start-up. He has an MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad and Honors degree in Mathematics from Hindu College. He is also a Senior Advisor for Teach for India, Member of Advisory Board on Social Entrepreneurship, British Council, Member of CSR Committee, CII and Member of the India Chapter Steering Committee, Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs.

Co-Founder, Program & Impact Lead, Alohomora Education Foundation

Parinita Jain

Parinita is a Co-Founder of Alohomora Education Foundation and leads their Programs and Impact vertical. She was previously a Teach for India Fellow and was also a member of their School and Government Relations Committee, based out of New Delhi. Parinita graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelors in Business Administration – Finance and Strategy, and has briefly worked as a financial analyst before moving to the social sector and starting her career in the education space.

Director - Centre for Social and Behaviour Change set up by Ashoka University and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Pavan Mamidi

Pavan Mamidi is the Director of the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC), he seeks to investigate social norms, trust, pro-social behaviour, and behavioural ethics using lab and lab-in-the-field experiments. Owing to significant experience in the research space, Pavan has previously held the coveted portfolio of Director (founding) for Centre for Experimental Social Sciences (CESS) Nuffield – FLAME University.

Having demonstrated extensive experience in the education sector, Pavan has served as a faculty member at IIM Ahmedabad teaching legal aspects of policies and business, contracts, negotiations and conflict resolution. He also taught research methodologies for various doctoral programs.

Pavan has also mentored senior government officers, including IPS on the policy programs at the National Police Academy and IAS at LBSNAA in Mussoorie. Apart from these, he has held positions at educational organisations of repute worldwide such as IIM Bangalore, MIT (Solan), the University of Michigan Law School and Harvard Law School.

Associate Director, Innovation Lab

Pavitra KL

Pavithra joined Dream a Dream’s life skills program as a young adolescent girl. She was part of the mentoring program and other life skills initiatives. At the age of 16, she joined as an intern and has grown within Dream a Dream since then. She has donned different roles across projects and currently, she works as Associate Director Innovation Lab where she works with over 10000 young people along with a 50+ member team, developing various skill development modules for young people. Her mission is to work with young people and transform their life using life skills approach. Pavithra also works as a Lead Facilitator training teachers/community workers across Karnataka as part of the Teacher Development Program.

Founder & CEO, SaveLIFE Foundation

Piyush Tewari

Piyush is the Founder and CEO at SaveLIFE Foundation (SLF), a non-profit organisation committed to improving road safety and access to emergency medical care across India. SLF is best known for forgetting India a Good Samaritan Law that insulates lay rescuers of injured victims from systemic harassment and intimidation. It is also credited with delivering a dramatic 30 per cent drop in fatalities last year on one of India’s most dangerous roads, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, with plans to make it 100 percent fatality-free by 2021

Founder & CEO - 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, with a team of over 100 dedicated professionals, Arpan is India’s largest NGO providing CSA Prevention and Intervention services for both children and adults. Pooja is a member of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) and has received numerous awards for her work on Child Abuse, including the Inspire Award, the Astitwa Award, the Architects of the Future Award and the Karmaveer Puraskar Award.

Executive Director, Population Foundation of India

Poonam Muttreja

Poonam Muttreja is the Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India (PFI). She has more than 35 years of experience in the socio-development sector. Before joining PFI, Poonam worked with the McArthur Foundation as India Country Director where she was responsible for the Foundation’s grants in India which had a focus on population and development issues. An innovator in the field of development, in the earlier stage of her career she has co-founded organizations in the areas of social justice (SRUTI), craft (DASTKAR) and programs on leadership (Founder Director of the Ashoka Foundation, India), and in the field of women’s health. She has been a member of the Family Planning 2020 Reference Group and has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Technical Specialist, ICRW

Poulomi Pal

Poulomi Pal is a technical specialist in New Delhi, India. In this role, she provides technical expertise and managerial support to research projects in the thematic portfolio of Violence Rights and Inclusion, with a specific focus on intimate partner violence. Poulomi possesses close to eight years’ experience in the development sector, and has worked on gender rights, gender-based violence and law enforcement issues with research institutions, non-governmental organizations, central and state governments in India as well as the South Asian region: disbursing funds, mentoring and implementing projects, monitoring and evaluating legislatures/projects, conceptualizing and developing proposals/policy briefs, etc. Prior to joining ICRW, she was affiliated with Amherst College SWAGS (Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies) Department, as a Fulbright-Nehru Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. Her work inquired into existing models of one-stop crisis centers for survivors of gender-based violence in the U.S and India.

Founder, Sumarth

Prabhat Kumar

Prabhat is a serial Entrepreneur. He hails from a farmer family of a small village of Gaya, Bihar. He has done his schooling from Bihar, graduation in Electrical Engineering from Bengal and executive course from Harvard Business School.  A Young India Fellow, IFC Fellow, ICICI Fellow and Silicon Valley Fellow, he started his entrepreneurial journey as healthcare professional during Young India Fellowship in Delhi. He co-founded Sumarth (A for-purpose initiative) to promote profitable and sustainable farming in Bihar. Sumarth is India’s one of the fastest growing not-for- profit organisation. Within 3 years they have grown from 1 village (his native village) to 500 villages and currently working with more 10,000 farmers in Bihar.  Prabhat is a globetrotter, he has visited 25+ countries. He is winner of various global Business plan competitions and awards like Tata Social Enterprise Challenge at IIM C, DBS-NUS Social Venture challenge in Singapore, Silicon Valley Challenge-San Francisco, Indiafrica Business Venture in Accra, Ghana etc. He has been invited to Skoll World Forum, Oxford University and visited Davos during World Economic Forum. He has been judge of DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge-Singapore, Jagriti Yatra etc.

Regional Director (India, Nepal and Sri Lanka), Ford Foundation

Pradip Nair

Pradip Nair is Regional Director with Ford Foundation, based out of India, and is responsible for their work in the region. With more than 65 years of history in the region, as one of the oldest US foundations in the country and with hundreds of grants over the decades, Ford Foundation continues to play an important role in social sector growth in the region. Pradeep has more than 20 years of private and non-profit experience, working primarily in the US and India, with a brief stint in Europe. He has an engineering and management degree, and started his career in the strategy and technology space, working in Silicon Valley, initially with Deloitte Consulting as a management consultant, and later with technology and data start-ups. His previous experience includes working with President Clinton’s Climate Initiative, with a focus on India and the region. Working with Michael Bloomberg (NYC Mayor) and his team, he was also instrumental in expanding the C40 network (a network of global mayors) in India and the region.

Founding Dean, ISB; Founder & Trustee, Ashoka University

Pramath Sinha

Pramath Raj Sinha is the Founder and Managing Director of 9.9 Media, a niche media company. Before founding 9.9 Media, he was the MD & CEO of the ABP Group, one of India’s leading and most diversified media conglomerates. He spent 13 years with McKinsey and Company as a Partner, where he led McKinsey India’s telecom, IT, and media practices as well as its organisation practice, where he focused on issues of transformation and leadership. Pramath is the Founding Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB). He is also the Founder & Trustee of the acclaimed liberal arts university, Ashoka University, which launched the popular Young India Fellowship in 2011. Pramath has now launched the Vedica Scholars Programme for Women, a unique 18-month “reimagined MBA” program that attracts high-potential women from across India. Pramath received M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.Tech. from IIT-Kanpur.

Co-Founder, Asha Impact & Chairman, Clix Capital

Pramod Bhasin

Pramod Bhasin’s career spans a professional and entrepreneurial journey in financial services and business process management across the globe. He built Genpact, a global leader in Business Process Management, and was its President & CEO till 2011. Prior to Genpact, his career with GE spanned 25 years across the US, UK and Asia. He was earlier the CEO of GE Capital in India & Asia. In September 2016, Pramod along with partners acquired the businesses of GE Capital – India, now known as Clix Capital. He is the Chairman of Clix Capital, which is a broad-based NBFC, focused on providing digital platforms and financial services to commercial companies and consumers across India. Pramod is the co-founder of Asha Impact, Virtual Fund focused on Social Impact Investments and Advocacy. He has also co-founded the Skills Academy that focuses on providing vocational skills training to lower-income youth in villages across the country. Pramod serves on the Boards of DLF Ltd, SRF Ltd and NDTV. He is also on the governing Board of ICRIER, Help Age and The Shri Ram School. He has been the Chairman of Nasscom and noted “ IT Man of the Year” by Dataquest.

Large Scale Education Programme, Educational Initiatives

Pranav Kothari

Pranav Kothari heads the ‘Large Scale Education Programme’ at Educational Initiatives, an organisation that aims to leverage cutting-edge educational research and technology-based solutions to revolutionise how children in the K-12 education space learn. Pranav has overseen various large-scale student assessments and program implementations across states in India. He has also contributed to the revision in the ICT policy by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, advocating the use of technology-based, personalised learning to improve learning outcomes in reading and math.

An alumnus of Georgia Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School, Pranav has previously worked with the Boston Consulting Group and GTI Private Equity in the US and India.

Sr. Program Manager, Strategy, Learning & Partnerships, Central Square Foundation

Praveen Khangta

Praveen leads the strategy office of Central Square Foundation, an organisation focused on system reform in education, and is currently helping set up new organisations focused on economic development and improving talent in the social sector. Prior to this role, Praveen worked with the Government of India on the implementation of key strategic projects and scaling up successful practices from NGOs and government. He is a Young India Fellow and a Teach for India Fellow.

IPS, Secretary - Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS)

Praveen Kumar

Dr RS Praveen Kumar is an officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS) with a career spanning more than 25yrs. He has served both nationally and internationally, demonstrating commendable leadership and prudence in resolving conflicts and maintaining law and order.

He took over the administration of social welfare residential educational institutions in the year 2012, working with about 200,000 children from vulnerable backgrounds providing them with better access to education and opportunities to pursue their interests and careers. One of them being Malavath Poorna, a 13-year-old tribal student who made history by being the youngest girl in the world to scale Mount Everest. Her story has been made into a critically acclaimed film in 2017 called ‘Poorna’ and Rahul Bose, the actor and filmmaker played Dr Praveen Kumar’s role in the film.

Co-Founder, QYON

Preeti Mann

Preeti is a social anthropologist. She is an alumna of the University of Delhi and the University of Oxford, where she completed her doctorate on a Rhodes Scholarship. She has extensive research, teaching and applied work experience in development. Her experience ranges from working in the field with locals, alongside grassroots outfits, to working with international aid organisations in the US. She was a full time academic in Delhi and recently helped set up the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka University. Her areas of interest are local knowledge, social change, identity, wellbeing and development.

Founder and CEO, Samhita

Priya Naik

Founder, IndiaPreneurship

Priyank Narayan

Priyank is a seasoned entrepreneur and an educationist who brings with him rich experience in organization building. He is the Founder of IndiaPreneurship, an organisation focused on showcasing entrepreneurial opportunities in India to the world. He also mentors a number of startups based in India and abroad. Priyank is a visiting faculty at IIT Delhi, Department of Management Studies. An alumnus of AIM, Manila and IIM Ahmedabad, Priyank is an avid golfer and a licensed scuba diver. He is also trained in Indian classical music.

CEO, Child Rights and You (CRY)

Puja Marwaha

After a liberal arts and Human Resources development education, Puja Marwaha made the transition from the corporate to the social sector early in her career. Having worked earlier with various corporate organisations, she joined CRY in 1994 to set up the organization’s Human Resources function. In 2002 she moved into more general management roles in CRY. Today, Puja is the Chief Executive Officer at CRY, India’s leading child rights organization.Puja believes that children should be at the heart of all human development work. Over the course of her work, Puja has been involved in the nurturing of a large number of organisations and people, enabling them to connect at the level of individual belief, to the vision of all rights, for all children. For the past 22 years, Puja has helped build an organizational framework for CRY that best captures the essence of justice and equity. Puja was recently announced as the 5th winner of the Olga Alexeeva Memorial Prize, for being a pioneer in the area of public philanthropy in India.

Writer, Academic and Former Member, UPSC

Purushottam Agarwal

Purushottam Agarwal is an academic, writer, literary critique, theologian, secularist, columnist, and broadcaster. He was a member of the Union Public Service Commission for over 6 years and the Chairman of the Centre of Indian Languages, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, JNU. He has served as Chief Advisor of the 'Peaceful co-existence in South Asia; project of the Aman Trust, Delhi. As a consultant to Oxfam, India he organized interfaces of scholars, creative artists and social activists as part of the Violence Amelioration and Mitigation Project (VMAP). He has taught at various institutes like JNU, Cambridge University, El Colegio de Mexico, and Ashoka University. He was also the Chief Advisor, Hindi Textbooks for NCERT. He has an MA in Political Science from Jiwaji University, Gwalior and in Hindi Literature from JNU. He was awarded a PhD degree by Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1985 on the topic of The Social Meaning of Kabir’s Bhakti and is known for the conceptualization of “Deshaj Aadhunikta” or Indigenous Modernity. He has written many novels and short stories, some of them being Hindi Sarai, Nirgun Santon ke Swapna, Akhath Kahani Prem Ki: Kabir ki Kavita aur Unka Samay, Kabir: Sakhi aur Sabad, Nakohas and Paan Patte ki Goth. He is also a commentator on political, social and cultural matters on Television and Radio including BBC, NDTV, IBN, Doordarshan, Lok Sabha TV, Rajya Sabha TV among others. He was awarded with Devi Shankar Awasthy Samman for Teesra Rukh, in 1996, and Mukutdhar Pandey Samman for Sanskriti: Varchaswa aur Pratirodh, in 1997.

Founder, Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement and GRAAM

R. Balasubramanium

Having lived and worked for several years among remote forest-based tribal communities in the southern Indian district of Mysuru, Dr. R. Balasubramaniam (Balu) has uniquely been able to combine a vast development sector experience with studying and teaching at the world’s leading schools of policy and development including Harvard and Cornell Universities. He was a special investigator for Lokayukta Karnataka (Anti-Corruption Commission) and held membership and consulting positions in government bodies and commissions, academic boards and development agencies including the World Bank. He is currently serving as the Leadership Coach & Advisor to the Ministry of Petroleum, Govt of Egypt. He is a visiting professor at Cornell University, USA and IIT-Delhi, India. He has also served as the Professor and head of the Vivekananda Chair of the University of Mysore twice. Dr Balasubramaniam is the Founder of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement and Grassroots Research And Advocacy Movement. His books, ‘i, the citizen’ and ‘Voices from the Grassroots’ present an alternate approach to human development

Actor, Film Maker, Social Worker/ Activist & Rugby Player

Rahul Bose

Rahul Bose has been called the ‘Indian art house icon’, by TIME magazine. His international awards include the Best Actor award at the Singapore Film Festival in 2000 and the runner-up prize – the John Schlesinger Award for Best Debut Director in 2002 for ‘Everybody Says I’m Fine!’. Rahul’s other awards include : Indian Youth Icon of the Year – Social Justice, the Green Globe award for Climate Change, the Lt. Governor’s Commendation Award for Services to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Hakim Khan Sur award for National Integration and GQ’s Man of the Year for Social Justice.

Rahul has lectured on leadership, gender justice and cinema at Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge and MIT, amongst others. Indian rugby’s most recognisable face, Rahul represented India, playing 17 internationals from 1998 to 2009. He is currently on the board of the Indian Rugby Football Union.

Rahul has founded two NGOs : The Foundation, dedicated to the equalisation of opportunity through education and HEAL, working to prevent child sexual abuse.

Leadership and Strategy Consultant

Rajen Makhijani

Rajen Makhijani brings an inter-disciplinary approach to pressing issues for leaders in the business, politics and development. He is a facilitator, coach, award nominated screenwriter, and has held leadership positions in top tier global strategy consulting firms, and line organisations. He was nominated as one of the 100 Influencers in India’s Impact Sector in 2018 by Action For India. He is a two-time TEDx speaker – ‘Why Stories’ at National University of Singapore and ‘Uneducated not Stupid – How the Poor See Life’ at Nanyang Technological University Singapore (~125,000 views). He is a Sir Dorab Tata Merit Scholar, Citibank Leadership Awardee, and winner of Wings of Excellence from University of St.Gallen, Switzerland, a volunteer in urban slums. He has 18 years post-IIM experience with top tier firms like McKinsey, Dalberg, ECS and Heidrick and his last role was as the Country Director of University of Chicago’s Tata Centre for Development, International Innovation Corps, India. He has been focussing completely on the Impact Sector in the last 5 years across Education, Environment, WASH, Humanitarian, and Health, with a particular focus on two horizontals – Financing for Development, and Leadership Capacity Building.

Founder-Director, Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, Washington, D.C. Senior Research Scholar, Princeton University

Ramanan Laxminarayan

Dr Ramanan Laxminarayan is founder and director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) in Washington, D.C., and a senior research scholar at Princeton University. He is an affiliate professor at the University of Washington and a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and at the University of Kwazulu Natal in South Africa. He chairs the board of GARDP, a global product development partnership created by the World Health Organization, that aims to develop and deliver new treatments for bacterial infections. He is also founder and board chair at HealthCubed, which works to improve access to healthcare and diagnostics worldwide.

Dr Laxminarayan has worked to improve the understanding of antibiotic resistance as a problem of managing a shared global resource. He has served on the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s antimicrobial resistance working group and is currently a voting member of the US Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antimicrobial Resistance.

He is a winner of the Ella Pringle medal by the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh and the BP Koirala medal in honour of Nepal’s first democratically elected Prime Minister.

Director of Library Services, Ashoka University

Rangashri Kishore

Dr Rangashri Kishore is the Director of Library Services in Ashoka University. She is a Librarian by profession but a mental health worker by avocation. She has co-founded three half-way homes in India. She has co-founded the Richmond Fellowship Society of India (RFS) (India) Delhi Branch (Details of the organisation can be found at http://www.rfsindia.org) which has been successfully running for the last many years.  The RFS (India) National Board is located in Bangalore. In Ashoka University she has established the University’s Library from scratch including digital systems and services for easy and quick retrieval of books and other information sources.. She has also implemented many community development initiatives with students of Ashoka for mental health awareness as well as conducting open Library programs for the village children surrounding villages of the University

Co-Founder, SEARCH

Rani Bang

Dr. Rani Bang is a social activist and researcher working in the field of community health. She co-founded Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health (SEARCH), a non-profit organisation, along with her husband, Dr Abhay Bang, in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, India.

SEARCH established a partnership with communities in Gadchiroli for health and development, and helped create “tribal-friendly” clinics and a hospital in the district. Through their work in the communities, they have revolutionised healthcare for some of the most marginalised people in India and have overseen a program that has substantially reduced infant mortality rates in the region.

Dr. Rani Bang is the recipient of many awards and recognitions, including the Padma Shri in 2018. She has been recognised for her untiring efforts and leadership in community-based health care that is now helping to save the lives of millions of the most vulnerable newborns and children.

Dr. Rani Bang completed her graduation and post graduation in medical studies from Nagpur University and Master’s in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She is also the author of numerous scientific publications and journals.

Founder Director, Toxic Links

Ravi Agarwal

Ravi Agarwal is Founder Director of Toxics Link, an environmental NGO based in New Delhi and working on areas of chemical safety, toxics and waste, for over two decades. Ravi is part of several high-level Governmental standards and regulatory committees, and actively participates in UNEP, EU, WHO forums. He has been an active advocate for Delhi’s greens and rivers and helped lead the campaign to save the Delhi Ridge Forest in 1994. He helped found the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) a 600 member international civil society network working on chemical safety. Ravi, is also an established artist and curator working with photographs-video- installation and public art and has been invited to several important international exhibitions. He co-curated the Yamuna-Elbe project, an Indo German twin city public art and ecology project (2011), Embrace our Rivers an Indo- European project in Chennai (2018), and is photography curator for the upcoming Serendipity Arts Festival 2018. Ravi writes regularly on environmental issues in the media and journals besides having co- authored books such as Chemicals, Environment, Health: A Global Management Perspective. He received the IFCS -WHO Special Recognition Award (2008), and the Ashoka fellowship (1998). He is a communications engineer and MBA by training.

Founder & Director, Indian School of Development Management (ISDM)

Ravi Sreedharan

Ravi has worked for 24 years in the Corporate Sector most of which was at HSBC. At HSBC, Ravi has worked as the Regional Marketing Head for the Middle East and Africa, Head of Consumer Products for Asia Pacific, Consumer Banking Head of Indonesia, CEO and President Director of Bank Ekonomi (a local bank in Indonesia that was acquired by HSBC). He quit his corporate career and switched to the social sector 5 years ago with Azim Premji Foundation where he was the Head of Education Leadership & Management.

Chief Executive Officer Hindustan Unilever Foundation

RESHMA ANAND

Reshma started out with a conventional corporate career at Unilever in India in roles including market intelligence, product innovation and brand management. As work took her to rural outposts across India, Reshma decided to shift gears to work on development challenges through market-based solutions. She is the founder of two social ventures, a specialist advisory firm on sustainable social responsibility and an accelerator for agri and artisanal micro entrepreneurs.  She has worked extensively with non-profit organizations and donors on strategy design, impact assessment and leadership development. Reshma has anchored efforts to drive informed philanthropy in India through thought leadership, collective funding platforms and collaborations with government. She is an Economics graduate from the University of Delhi, an MBA from IIM-Bangalore, an Aspen Fellow and a TED India Fellow. In her current role, Reshma heads Hindustan Unilever Foundation; a corporate foundation focused on water conservation and community governance. She has a bag packed at all times to take a road trip.

Former Director, Training & Impact at Teach For India

Romana Shaikh

Romana Shaikh, started her journey as a Teach For India Fellow with 60 2nd grade students in a low fee Private School in Mumbai in 2009. Since then, the purpose and process of education have become the key drivers of her work. Through her tenure as Director of Training & Impact at Teach For India, Romana developed the design of the 2-year Fellowship program bridging instructional leadership with personal leadership through structures and processes, coaching and developing program leads and creating tools for evaluation and monitoring. Developing the framework for holistic student outcomes and designing for program strategy with regional leaders, she developed an understanding of what it means to design for implementation at scale and how to manage change and decentralization. Today, Romana works with various organizations in education to build individual and team capabilities for fostering a shared vision for children and the future, designing for implementation with robust evaluation processes and practices for continuous learning about self, others and the system. All this rests on a belief that people – children and adults – continuously evolve their attitudes and beliefs when provided with experiences that provoke and prompt reflection in a safe and loving environment.

Consultant, Innobridge Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

Roop Sen

Roop Sen is a researcher, facilitator and coach offering personal growth and professional development programs for managers, leaders and professionals in various sectors. He facilitates partnerships between organisations and large groups for collective impact projects, enabling multi-stakeholder groups to work collectively. He has two decades of work experience in the development sector, focusing on issues of migration, youth and violence at the grassroots level. He is a co-founder of Sanjog, a non-profit working on policy, legislation and practice of access to justice programs for survivors of human trafficking. Roop is a trained process worker and an accredited organisation development consultant. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Calcutta.

Chancellor and Professor of History at Ashoka University

Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Rudrangshu Mukherjee is the Chancellor and Professor of History at Ashoka University. He is a renowned historian and author, and was most recently the Editor of the Editorial Pages, at The Telegraph, Kolkata. Prof. Mukherjee has taught history at the University of Calcutta and held visiting appointments at Princeton University, the University of Manchester and, the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prof. Mukherjee studied at Calcutta Boys’ School, Presidency College, Kolkata, JNU, New Delhi, and St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was awarded a D.Phil in Modern History by the University of Oxford in 1981. He is internationally acclaimed as a historian of the revolt of 1857 in India. His first book Awadh in Revolt, 1857-58: A Study of Popular Resistance has become a standard reference on the subject. He has also authored and edited several books on other themes, including The Penguin Gandhi Reader, Trade and Politics and, the Indian Ocean World: Essays in Honour of Ashin Das Gupta, Remembered Childhood: Essays in Honour of Andre Beteille, New Delhi: The Making of a Capital and Great Speeches of Modern India. His latest book is Nehru & Bose: Parallel Lives.

Founder, LedBy Foundation

Ruha Shadab

Ruha Shadab is a doctor turned public health professional turned social entrepreneur. She is the Founder of LedBy Foundation, a unique leadership incubator that works on improving equity in the workplace. She is a recent graduate from Harvard University, where she received her Master in Public Policy on a full tuition scholarship. On graduation, she was awarded the Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Leadership Award: the first Indian to receive it. During her Master’s, she served as the Co-Chair of the India Conference at Harvard, worked at Yale University as first author for a medical ethics paper, and at the Gates Foundation on a global health strategy framework.

Founder & Executive Director, Educate Girls

Safeena Husain

Safeena Husain is the Founder and Executive Director of Educate Girls – a non-profit organisation that aims at tackling issues at the root cause of gender inequality in India’s education system. After graduating from the London School of Economics, Safeena spent over a decade working with grassroots projects in Latin America, Africa & Asia. Educate Girls presently works in 21,000 government-run primary schools spread across 15 districts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. There are over 4.9 million total beneficiaries of its programmatic interventions. Under Safeena’s leadership, Educate Girls has initiated the world’s first Development Impact Bond (DIB) in education. She has been conferred with 2017 NITI Aayog’s Women Transforming India Award and has in the past received the British Asian Trust’s Special Recognition Award from HRH Prince Charles for outstanding contribution in education.

Investigative Reporter, Author, De-risking Specialist, Public Policy Professional

Saikat Datta

Saikat Datta is an award-winning investigative reporter, author, de-risking specialist and public policy professional. He has covered the insurgency in Kashmir, Chhattisgarh and various other disasters. Today he is applying that experience to the task of building the Gurugram COVID19 Integrated Command Centre and emergency citizen support.

Filmmaker and Creative Director at Kahaani Wale

Samarth Mahajan

Samarth Mahajan is a Filmmaker and Creative Director at Kahaani Wale, an artist collective based in New Delhi. Self-taught in the art of filmmaking, he loves to tell stories that highlight invisible narratives. His documentary projects have received critical and mass attention in media. “The Unreserved”, his debut feature documentary, premiered at Film South-Asia 2017 and has been screened in more than 50 national and international forums. He recently won the 65th National Award for Best On-Location Sound Recordist for “The Unreserved”. His latest project “We, The People”, about India’s protest street Jantar Mantar Road, was awarded at Docedge Kolkata – Asian Forum for Documentary. Samarth completed his education from IIT Kharagpur and Young India Fellowship.

Global CEO, English Helper

Sanjay Gupta

Sanjay Gupta commenced his professional journey in Finance in the early 1980s working across a range of reputed companies in India including the Tata Group, Eicher – Mitsubishi, Pepsi and Motorola. Sanjay joined American Express in 1996 and held a number of business leadership roles based in New Delhi, New York and Singapore. In 2010, decided to pursue a new career to build a social enterprise for giving back in a sustainable way. Sanjay assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer at English Helper Inc. The company is committed to providing innovative and affordable technology enabled English learning to people across all age groups and income segments. Most recently, the company has initiated ‘RightToRead’ with a view to enable English literacy in public schools across the world and has launched ‘EnglishBolo’ in India designed to help youth from low income backgrounds to improve English speaking skill. In addition, Sanjay is engaged with the cause of children and youth as an active Board Member at Udayan Care, and School of Inspired Leadership. He is guest faculty at Duke University’s Executive Education Program and delivers programs on doing business across cultures, customer and brand, leadership during change. Sanjay also coaches senior executives/ business leaders with special focus on developing personal excellence. Sanjay is on the Boards of BOI AXA Asset Management Company and Skills Training Assessment Management Partners. He is Advisor, Acumen India.

Chief Curator - Societal Platforms, Ek Step Foundation

Sanjay Purohit

Sanjay has over 26 years of diverse and global experience in manufacturing, telecom, information technology and management consulting. Now he is applying his learning and experience to develop Societal Platforms (open digital co-creation networks) in sustainable developmental sectors such as lifelong learning, financial inclusion, personalised healthcare, sustainable habitats and emerging livelihoods. Some of his key roles include scale advisor to EkStep Foundation and eGovernments Foundation, innovation advisor to Unleash, and strategic advisor to Fundamentum Partnerships. Prior to taking up these responsibilities, Sanjay served as Executive Vice President, Infosys Limited, Chairman and Managing Partner, Infosys Consulting and CEO and Co-Founder, EdgeVerve Systems Limited. Sanjay is an alumnus of National Institute of Technology, Srinagar where he completed his BE in Mechanical Engineering.

Founder, Arthan

Satyam Vyas

Satyam is the founder of Arthan, a social enterprise that provides strategic human capital consulting support to mission-driven organisations using technology, data science, and applied psychology. Arthan offers both technology products and recruitment services that help build great teams and simultaneously prepares underprivileged government school children for the future of work. Satyam has spent a decade in education, skill development and social entrepreneurship. Satyam believes that education can provide the tools necessary to change the world. He dreams to have a defined career path for all children and youth in the country. In the last one decade, Satyam has designed, implemented, scaled and impacted lives of more than two million children studying in government schools in India. In the past, he has worked with leading non-profits in India-Pratham and Going to School. Satyam is a THNK fellow, holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Delhi University and executive degrees in social entrepreneurship and leading successful social programs from Stanford Business Schools and Harvard Kennedy School.

Director, Social Impact and Development Practice, BCG India

Seema Bansal

Seema has 18 years of experience in strategy advisory. She began her career in the commercial consulting space focusing on telecom and financial services. However, over the last 8-10 years, she has set up BCG India’s Social Impact and Development Practice. She now leads a large body of work around large scale transformations of social systems with central and several state governments. Her work includes programs in education, food distribution, health and nutrition and rural energy access. She is currently working with leaderships of 4 state governments as well as Niti Aayog.

CEO, Teach For India

Shaheen Mistri

Shaheen grew up in 5 countries around the world, and returned to India when she was 18 to start The Akanksha Foundation. For 17 years, she worked with teachers and students, building Akanksha to provide 4000 children from low- income communities the kind of education that would maximize their greatest potential. Today, Akanksha serves 6500 children through their School Project and after-school centres in Mumbai and Pune. In 2008, Shaheen founded Teach For India, with an audacious vision of providing an excellent education to all children across India through building a pipeline of leaders committed to ending educational inequity in India. Today, Teach For India directly impacts approximately 38,000 children across seven regions in India. Shaheen serves on the boards of Akanksha Foundation, Design for Change, and Simple Education Foundation. Shaheen has been an Ashoka Fellow and is the author of the book, Re-drawing India. She has a Bachelor’s Degree from St. Xavier, College, Mumbai and a Master’s Degree from the University of Manchester.

CEO and Co-founder, EkStep

Shankar Maruwada

Shankar Maruwada is the CEO and Co-founder of EkStep. Shankar is passionate about addressing social problems at scale through technology based tools. He is an entrepreneur and marketing professional with a wide range of experience working on large scale projects such as the AADHAAR, India’s national identification program, where he was the Head of Demand Generation and Marketing. Shankar pioneered data analytics in India through, Marketics, a company he co-founded. He is an investor in startups and a mentor to entrepreneurs. He is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad and Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur.

Managing Director Central Square Foundation

Shaveta Sharma Kukreja

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. 

Policy and Advocacy Specialist, Tata Trusts

Shireen Vakil

Shireen Vakil is a policy and advocacy specialist with over 20 years of experience in the field of Child Development with special interest in issues of adolescent girls. At Tata Trusts, Shireen heads the Policy and Advocacy unit where she is responsible for the strategy development, advocacy, policy and programming in the core areas of Education, Child Protection, Health and Nutrition, and Justice and Exclusion. Shireen works closely with governments and key stakeholders to ensure that policy is informed by research and practice. Previously, she played a key role in setting up Save the Children (India) and was responsible for developing the Advocacy, Campaigns and Communication function for the organisation. Shireen holds a Master’s in Education and International Development from the Institute of Education (IOE), University College London (UCL).

CEO, Akshay Patra Foundation

Shridhar Venkat

Shridhar has over 23 years of work experience and has been associated with leading multinationals like Philips, ABB, Webex Communications (now CISCO), etc. Prior to joining Akshaya Patra, he was Vice President – Sales, Webex Communications. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Management. Shridhar is an Eisenhower Fellow 2014 and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program from Wharton Business School 2014. In Akshaya Patra, Shridhar oversees all the executive functions such as Resource Mobilization, Communication, Finance, HRD, IT and Operations Excellence Initiative. He brings to the table strong people management and organization skills.

Chief Executive Officer of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy

Srikanth Viswanathan

Srikanth is Chief Executive Officer of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. Janaagraha is a Bengaluru based non-profit working with the mission of transforming quality of life in India’s cities and towns. Janaagraha works with citizens to catalyse active citizenship in city neighbourhoods and with governments to institute reforms to city governance. Srikanth’s focus area in the urban sector has been “city-systems” reforms spanning Janaagraha’s flagship report the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) and municipal finance reforms. Srikanth has been an Associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for fifteen years and prior to joining Janaagraha worked in banking and audit.

Programme Officer, Ford Foundation

Srinivasan Iyer

He is currently working as Program Officer at Ford Foundation New Delhi. Srinivasan holds a master’s of philosophy degree in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. His grant making focuses on the region’s employment challenge through research and dialogue on job-rich growth strategies, supporting the implementation of key social protection policies, demonstrating models in key industrial sectors and strengthening rainfed-farming. His grantmaking also supports increased employment of women in non-traditional occupations and on making cities more conducive to the livelihoods of the poor. Before joining the Foundation in 2014, he served as Assistant Country Director with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in India, leading its work on energy and environment. In the early 1990s, he co-founded Samaj Pragati Sahayog, an NGO that works with poor and marginalized communities in central India on livelihood security and political empowerment.

CEO - Dream a Dream

Suchetha Bhat

Suchetha has over 19 years of work experience having worked both in the corporate and social sector. As an Electronics and Communication engineer, she worked successfully for 9 year. Volunteering for Dream a Dream helped her realize her true passion and she went on to get a Postgraduate degree in Psychological Counselling. Since joining Dream a Dream full-time in 2010 she has been instrumental in scaling the impact of the organization, from 3000 children to over 3 million children today. She is the coauthor of the scientific journal ‘The Life Skills Assessment Scale (LSAS): New Norms to include 17-19 and 20-22 years’. Her strengths include understanding child-adversity, organization culture building, and impact assessment of life-skills programs.

Founder & CEO, RTLWorks

Sudarshan Rodriguez

Sudarshan Rodriguez is a development professional with multi-disciplinary backgrounds in disaster management, environmental sciences, environmental economics, policy, and environmental law. Until recently he was Programme Director at Mahatma Gandhi Academy of Human Development (MGAHD) a center of the Tata Institute of social sciences, Mumbai located in Nagaland focusing on Livelihoods and Social Entrepreneurship. He has since then worked in several locations with a range of civil society groups on interdisciplinary aspects of natural resource and environmental management.  Since 2010 he has been trained under Dr. Monica Sharma in the Conscious Full-Spectrum Response Approach, a transformational leadership approach based on universal values and ethics.

CEO - Save the Children, India

Sudarshan Suchi

Sudarshan Suchi is Save the Children’s Chief Executive Officer. He is a seasoned civil society leader with three decades of local to global experience in academics, development and corporate setting; and, an authority in participatory practices to empower communities to lead transformation. Sudarshan comes with the core competency of conceptualising development programs, development-based business models, efficient resource mobilisation, establishing partnerships, collaboration and coalitions towards issues that impact children’s fair access to basic human rights.

Chief Executive Officer, The /Nudge Centre for Social Innovation

SUDHA SRINIVASAN

Sudha heads The /Nudge Centre for Social Innovation (CSI), an initiative of The/Nudge Foundation on a mission to nudge India’s talented problem solvers to work on its most meaningful challenges. Since starting in 2016, CSI’s incubation program has jumpstarted 35 nonprofit startups on a growth path.  Prior to heading CSI, Sudha worked in the hi-tech industry for 17 years in various leadership roles at Intel, Verizon and Infosys. She has an MBA from IIM Lucknow.

Chief People Officer - Azim Premji Foundation

Sudheesh Venkatesh

Sudheesh Venkatesh is the Chief People Officer at the Azim Premji Foundation and a member of the Board of Management of Azim Premji University. After a degree in Engineering and a post-graduate degree in Management from Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, Sudheesh worked for close to a decade each with Asian Paints and Tesco, two large, global organisations. He has been with the Azim Premji Foundation since 2010 and his role is to attract, develop and retain good people who can help the Foundation realise its vision. He was President of the National HRD Network, Bangalore (2013-15), served on the National Board of the HRD Network (2013-17) and has co-edited the most recent issue of the HRD Journal on ‘Education, Employability and Employment landscape in India’. He is often invited to speak and write on matters relating to people & organisations.

Founding Director and Secretary, Board of Trustees – CORO India

Sujata Khandekar

Sujata, a grassroots feminist, is the Co-Founder of CORO India. She was formerly an Assistant Engineer in Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB), Mumbai when she was deputed for adult literacy related work initiated by Government of Maharashtra and CORO. She received MA in Gender, Education and international development from University of London and was a fellow in Leadership Development Program of MacArthur Foundation, India. Empowerment of grassroots women and gender equality has been Sujata’s focus of personal and professional interventions over last 28 years. She firmly believes that the leadership of social change has to emerge from ‘within’. CORO’s grassroots leadership development program being implemented in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Delhi is Sujata’s dream project.  Sujata has authored a book in Marathi “Aashevin Aasha’ (Hope without Hope) based on her community related work. She has represented CORO in national and international forums and has contributed to many publications. Grassroots movements, grassroots mobilization, construction of masculinities and femininities have been focus of Sujata’s activism and writing. Sujata is currently pursuing her PhD on ‘meanings of women empowerment’ with focus on collective knowledge building from grassroots.

Founder & former Dean, Academics & Research, ISDM

Suparna Diwakar

Suparna has worked extensively in the development sector for over 25 years. She started her career with MYRADA and moved on to lead and manage multiple projects – from being Founding Trustee of Adamya Chetana; Vice-President and Project lead at Centre for Leadership and Management in Public Services; Consultant for multiple projects with Department of Public Instruction, District Institute for Education and Training in Karnataka State; Consultant for rural development project for the Indian Institute of Science etc. Besides curriculum development and teaching, she also has extensive experience of design, development and implementation of projects and pieces of training with corporates and organizations like Tata Institute for Social Sciences, The Teacher Foundation, Azim Premji Foundation, UNICEF etc. In her vast experience in the development sector, she has also published and presented several papers on academic leadership, management and governance. Suparna’s strength lies in her ability to straddle the theory-practice space, to make a meaningful contribution to change on the ground.

Partner, Career Coach, Quadrangle

Surabhi Bikhchandani

An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and St. Stephen’s College, Surabhi has over 25 years of experience largely in Recruitment Consulting and recently in Career Coaching. Leading the Executive Search practice at Quadrangle, she has successfully closed many leadership positions for her clients that include start-ups and social purpose organisations. Her focus is on detailed assessments of candidates to get the right organisation culture fit. Surabhi has been associated with ILSS since its inception. She is an advisor to Project Udhyam that is helping build rural entrepreneurship in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. She is a certified Career Coach (Nov 2018- Erickson International ACSTH Certified) with a mission to make her clients experience a positive transformation.

Director, Rubaru Roshni and Head, Social Media, Paani Foundation

Svati Chakravarty Bhatkal

Svati Chakravarty Bhatkal developed a keen interest in social questions as an undergraduate student. At 21, she began on her professional life as a reporter, writing on civic issues, gender, politics and culture — telling stories that mattered. She later spearheaded the creation of award-winning children’s books, social science publications and interactive learning materials, co-authored scripts for Bombay Lawyers, a television serial and Zokkomon, a children’s film produced by The Walt Disney Company. From 2012 to 2015, Svati co-directed and headed field research for Satyamev Jayate, among the most credible and widely-watched shows in the history of television. She researched and directed a documentary on female foeticide that went on to become a defining foundation for the show. In the year 2016, she embarked on the filming of a feature-length documentary researched and directed by her and produced by Aamir Khan Productions. The film, Rubaru Roshni (Where the Light Comes In) has been dubbed in six Indian languages and was released early 2019. Svati has served as visiting faculty at Xavier Institute of Communication and as vice-chairperson, Children’s Film Society of India. She currently works freelance on meaningful communication and film projects and heads social media for non-profit, Paani Foundation.

Senior Fellow, School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University - Foreign Policy Institute

Tanvi Nagpal

Tanvi Nagpal has over two decades of experience in international development policy research and program management in East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. She has applied her academic training in political economy to a wide range of development issues including sustainable and equitable water, sanitation and solid waste service delivery; supporting communities and local governments to manage environmental resources; and generating support for pro-poor urban policies and programs. Her work experience ranges from positions at the World Bank to think tanks and non-government organizations. She has also served as a consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. She has also authored numerous papers and reports for scholarly and non scholarly publications.

Founder & CEO, Indus Action

Tarun Cherukuri

Tarun Cherukuri is the Founder CEO of Indus Action, a public policy do-tank in India. Indus Action’s mission to enable vulnerable families, sustainable access to legislated rights. He is passionate about community organising, active citizenship and system leadership to realise social justice goals in India. He has served in multiple roles at TeachForIndia (Fellow, City Director, Advisory Board Member) during the last decade. He graduated from Harvard Kennedy School in 2013 and is a 2019 Obama Foundation Fellow. 

Founder, Jyothirgamaya Foundation

Tiffany Brar

Tiffany completed her B.Ed in Special Education with a focus on visual impairment and set up Jyothirgamaya Foundation in 2012. with a mission to empower and support underprivileged blind and visual impaired. Jyothirgamaya provides training that helps them overcome the obstacles faced in their daily lives as well as ensure the imparting of skills that will help them to discover and pursue their passions. This education paves their way for gainful employment, leading to the students integrating into the mainstream and thus, earning respect and gaining self-confidence and dignity.

Board member, Educate Girls

Ujwal Thakar

After 28 successful years in the banking sector, in leadership roles at SBI, Standard Chartered Bank, TimesBank and BNP Paribas, Ujwal Thakar moved to the social sector as CEO of Pratham in 2002. After six years at Pratham, he moved to GiveIndia, where he was CEO until he retired in 2010. Ujwal continues to be actively involved with both corporate as well as social sectors:  he has been an advisor to PwC and KPMG for their banking practice, a board member at an NBFC and an advisor to a fintech startup. He chairs the board of Educate Girls, sits on the boards of Ummeed Child Development Centre, Shoshit Sewa Kendra and Arogya World, and is a partner at the social incubator, N/Core. Ujwal holds a Master’s in biochemistry and post-graduate qualification in bank management. He has been a speaker at leading business schools in India, the US and the UK.

Feminist Writer, Publisher, Activist

Urvashi Butalia

Urvashi Butalia is an independent publisher and writer. Co-founder of India’s first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women, she now heads Zubaan, an imprint of Kali. She has had a long involvement in the women’s movement in India, and writes for newspapers, journals and books at home and abroad on a range of issues to do with women and gender. Among her best-known publications is the award-winning oral history of Partition: The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (winner of the Oral History Book Association award 2001 and the Nikkei Asia Award for Culture 2003). She is also visiting faculty at Ashoka University Sonepat. Butalia has received many awards for her work, among them the Padma Shri, which she was awarded in 2011.

CEO, SNEHA

Vanessa D’souza

Vanessa D’Souza has been the 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 holds a BA in Economics (Hons) and MBA with a specialisation in Marketing Management. She also completed 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 is a recipient of the Social Innovation and Iconic Leadership Award by World CSR Congress (2016) and the Mother Theresa Scholarship to attend a program on “Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management ” at Harvard Business School (2017).

Director - Resource Mobilisation, CRY

Vatsala Mamgain

Vatsala has worked in advertising for close to two decades on clients like J&J, Unilever, LG and Maruti. She has also set up a design portal, run a successful home catering business, worked as a textile consultant, and is a published writer. She believes that every single person has limitless potential and she hopes that her work at CRY will help India’s children realize theirs. Vatsala is an Alumna of IIMCalcutta and holds a BA honors in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College for Women. She has also been a mentor for participants from Batches 1 & 2 of the ILSS Fundraising Program.

Social Activist & Principal Trustee, India Welfare Trust

Venkat Krishnan N.

Venkat is the founder and Principal Trustee of India Welfare Trust. A social activist and philanthropist, he spends most of his time and efforts on promoting philanthropy and volunteerism in India, through initiatives like #DaanUtsav, #LivingMyPromise and #EveryIndianVolunteering. He co-founded Eklavya School (Ahmedabad) and Education Initiative Pvt Ltd, an organisation working on improving the quality of school education in India. In 2000, Venkat set up #GiveIndia to create a culture of giving in India.

Venkat is a graduate from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and has previously worked for The Times of India in various corporate and brand management functions. He later joined the founding team of Sony Entertainment Television in India.

Vice President, Development and Alumni Relations, Ashoka University

Venkatesam Eshwara

Venkat is Vice President, Development and Alumni Relations at Ashoka University. He has been with Ashoka since its inception and works closely with it’s Founders, Board of Trustees and Governing Body. Venkat’s responsibilities include fundraising, developing and implementing strategy, providing leadership and heading alumni relations at the institution. He formed and led the team that has raised the largest collective philanthropic fundraise in India. Venkat also ideated and helped create the Ashoka Archives for Contemporary India, which now possesses a formidable collection of documents and papers from eminent people across the world. Prior to joining Ashoka, he spent 21 years in building and growing start-ups in financial services and related sectors. Ashoka is his fifth association with a start-up and early stage venture. His core strengths lie in building, growing and managing geographically diverse operations. Venkat is an alumnus of St. Xaviers College, Calcutta and is fluent in four languages. He has a deep and abiding interest in wide-ranging musical genres and writes a blog on fundraising, organisation building and strategy.

Founder, Pradan and BASIX

Vijay Mahajan

Vijay Mahajan began working in rural livelihood promotion in 1981 with a Gandhian NGO in Bihar. In 1983, he founded PRADAN, an NGO which motivated young professionals to work at the grassroots to promote livelihoods of the poor. In 1991, he carried out two field-research studies, one on India’s rural non-farm sector and the other on financial services for the rural poor and women in India, both published internationally. Based on these, Vijay founded Basix which has since 1996, supported three million poor households through microfinance and livelihood promotion services. Vijay is a Distinguished Alumnus of IIT, Delhi and IIM, Ahmedabad and Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, USA. He was named among “60 outstanding social entrepreneurs of the world” at the World Economic Forum, Davos in 2003 and has been to Davos several times after that. He served on policy forums including the Rajasthan Mission on Livelihoods, 2005-07, the Rangarajan Committee on Financial Inclusion 2007-08, the Raghuram Rajan Committee on Financial Sector Reforms 2008-09, and as Chair of the World Bank hosted Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), 2012-13. Vijay retired from Basix in Oct 2016 and began the new phase by reflecting and writing on “Building an Economy of Nurturance”.

Psychiatrist, Mental Health Professor and Researcher

Vikram Patel

Vikram Patel is The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. He co-leads the Global Mental Health initiative at Harvard. His work has focused on the burden of mental disorders, their association with social disadvantages, and the use of community resources for their prevention and treatment.

He holds Honorary Professorships at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, the Public Health Foundation of India, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (where he co-founded the Centre for Global Mental Health and the Mental Health Innovations Network). He is a co-founder of Sangath, an Indian NGO which won the MacArthur Foundation’s International Prize for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2008 and the WHO Public Health Champion of India, award in 2016 and co-founder of the Movement for Global Mental Health. He is also a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences and has served on several WHO expert and Government of India committees, including the Committee which drafted India’s first National Mental Health Policy and the WHO High Level Independent Commission for Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health.

He has been awarded the Chalmers Medal (Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, UK), the Sarnat International Prize (US National Academy of Medicine), an Honorary Doctorate from Georgetown University, the Pardes Humanitarian Prize (The Brain & Behaviour Research Foundation), an Honorary OBE from the UK Government and the John Dirk Canada Gairdner Award in Global Health in 2019. He was listed in TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential persons of the year in 2015.

Independent Consultant on Ethical Trade & Managing Trustee, We, The People

Vinita Singh

Vinita Singh has more than 22 years of experience in the development sector. She has worked extensively in the areas of livelihoods, citizens rights and civics education. Across all these areas, she has mainly focused on building people’s capacities to empower themselves with skills, knowledge and attitudes to take charge of their own lives. She has been involved in the set-up of a number of organisations including International Resources for Fairer Trade, Satark Nagrik Sangathan and National Homeworkers Group. Currently, apart from undertaking few select consultancies, she is fully engaged with enlarging citizenship education in India as Managing Trustee with We, The People. Her education includes a Bachelors in Economics, and two Masters – one in Management from SP Jain Institute, Mumbai and the other in Social Policy from the London School of Economics. Her core competency is in facilitation and mentoring. She is also an effective public speaker on causes she is passionate about – democracy, active citizenship and the Constitution of India.

Co-Founder, Dream a Dream

Vishal Talreja

Vishal is co-founder of Dream a Dream, a charitable trust empowering children and young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish using a creative life skills approach. Currently, Dream a Dream works with 10,000 young boys and girls every year through two innovation labs – After School Life Skills Program and Career Connect Program. The organisation has trained over 8000 teachers/educators reaching out to over 200,000 children and young people.

Through its Happiness Curriculum in partnership with the Delhi Government, Dream a Dream has been able to impact over 1 million children. Over the years, Dream a Dream has received recognition for its innovative model and work, significant among these are being recognised by Lego Foundation and Ashoka as a Champion in the space of re-imagining learning in the world.

Vishal is an Ashoka Fellow, an Eisenhower Fellow and a board member at PYE Global. He also serves on the boards of Unltd India and India Cares Foundation. Vishal has been recognised as an “Architect of the Future” by the Waldzell Institut in Austria. He is an advisor and mentor to Reap Benefit and is deeply committed to mentoring start-up NGOs and young social entrepreneurs. He is a poet, a TEDx speaker and an active writer on development challenges and human-interest stories . In 2018, he was awarded the ‘Heroes of Bengaluru’ award.

Vishal is a graduate in Commerce and Accounting from Bangalore University and worked with Xerox India and a startup investment bank called Technology Holdings India Pvt. Ltd. He was an active member of AIESEC, an international student-led organisation with presence in over 80 countries, during his college days.

Director, Gandhi Fellowship Programme

Vivek Sharma

Vivek co-founded Gandhi Fellowship Program at the Piramal School of Leadership, shaping inspired young people into becoming leaders of tomorrow. Earlier, as North India Director at Pratham Education Foundation, he actively engaged with state governments for executing learning enhancement and school improvement programs. He started out life as a journalist. His last assignment was with the India Today Group as Editorial Coordinator before he set up and ran a clutch of tech businesses. Vivek was invited to teach in Delhi University, and has lectured at a host of top institutions of the country, including the IITs & IIMs. He sits on the Boards of couple of social enterprises; Is on the Steering Committee at QCI; chaired a top private School of Delhi and recently has been invited to the Board of a fastest growing Fin-Tech company.

President and CEO, Centre for Policy Research - CPR

Yamini Aiyar

Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive of CPR. In 2008, Yamini founded the Accountability Initiative at CPR. Under her leadership, the Accountability Initiative has produced significant research in the areas of governance, state capacity and social policy. It pioneered a new approach to tracking public expenditures for social policy programs and is widely recognised for running the country’s largest expenditure-tracking survey in elementary education. Yamini’s own research on social accountability, elementary education, decentralisation and administrative reforms has received both academic and popular recognition. Yamini Aiyar is a TED fellow and a founding member of the International Experts Panel of the Open Government Partnership.