Adil Shah

Associate Director

Adil is a passionate academic administrator and communicator with a Masters in Mass communication and Journalism from Kashmir University. He has had rich experience working at the student interface of new-age innovative pedagogies. Adil has worked in institutions such as Ashoka University, Vedica Scholars Programme for Women, Indian School of Development Management, and Masters’ Union School of Business.

Over the years, Adil has acquired skills in communication, content creation, programme leadership, and educational administration.

His film, Life on Wheels was recognised as the best film amongst 34 entries from all over India at the Verite Film Festival 2011.

Alpana Gulati

Director

Alpana is a media sales and content solutions specialist with comprehensive experience in building brands and generating revenue across media platforms.

She has launched and sustained marquee B2C and B2B events, on-air series, media partnerships and customised IPs across genres during her time at CNBC TV18 and Forbes India. Her last stint was as Associate Publisher for Vogue India where she led the ad-sales strategy across platforms in print, digital and events.

With highly-developed expertise in cross-platform selling, her key strengths lie in the conception and fostering of strategic partnerships through innovative and collaborative thinking.

Anuradha Prasad

Founder - CEO

Anu Prasad is the Founder & CEO of India Leaders for Social Sector (ILSS), a Delhi-based non-profit that works to strengthen the leadership talent pool in the social sector. Prior to setting up ILSS in 2017, Anu was the founding Deputy Dean of the prestigious Young India Fellowship (YIF) and a founding member of Ashoka University, India’s first liberal arts university. Before joining the social sector, Anu held leadership roles at multinational companies such as American Express and TNT. At Amex, she led the implementation of Amex’s global financial re-engineering as a part of launching Amex Financial Resource Centre in India. At TNT she was head of finance for the company’s North India region. An entrepreneur at heart, Anu has also co-founded and managed a successful travel company. She has also been a consultant for Dell Foundation on its education projects. Anu is an avid reader, an active volunteer in civic causes, and a passionate believer in lifelong learning, all of which she incorporates into the ILSS proposition of learning and values-based leadership. She also mentors young professionals and senior leaders and sits on the Board of two non-profit organisations. Anu graduated from HR College, Mumbai, and received her MBA from IMI, New Delhi.

Archana Ramachandran

Director

Archana’s work experiences have focused on leading projects and teams in Learning and Leadership across the Corporate, Government and Social sectors. Prior to ILSS, she worked as the City Director at Teach for India (TFI) where she led the strategy and operations for the TFI Fellowship and Alumni Movement to create a movement for educational equity. Prior to Teach for India, Archana worked with Infosys Leadership Institute and Boston Public Schools in the areas of Human Capital, Competency Development, Change Management and Diversity and Inclusion.

Archana is an Alumna of the Master’s Program in Education (M.Ed.) at Harvard Graduate School of Education at Massachusetts, Master’s Program in Management (MBA) at T.A. Pai Management Institute, Manipal and the Bachelor’s Program in Commerce (B.COM) at Stella Maris College, Chennai. Across all roles and teams, being a learner and an educator is the core of her work.

Ayush Gupta

Program Manager

Ayush has been a part of the social sector for 6+ years with experiences ranging from teaching in a classroom to capacity building and leadership development. An architect by degree, Ayush believes that the potential to find solutions to social challenges rests within the people which inspired him to transition into the development sector with FifthEstate where he worked on evaluating the impact of the grassroots organisations in Uttar Pradesh.

Ayush joined the Teach For India fellowship program in 2017 and taught in a low-income private school in Delhi for two years. Post the fellowship, he joined Teach For India’s program team in Delhi as a Program Manager, managing and coaching 70+ fellows over three years. While at Teach For India, Ayush has also led projects in partnership with SCERT Delhi, designing experiences for their Change Makers in Education Fellows, and consulted on the design and execution of diverse curriculums. With vast regard for creating large-scale impact, Ayush also holds a distinction certificate from the Rashtram School of Public Leadership for their Public Policy for Executives program.

Diva Mukherji

Senior Program Associate

Diva Mukherji holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Edinburgh, and recently completed a Masters in Sociology and Anthropology from Central European University, where her research focused on the intersection of development and digital technologies.

Diva has previously worked with the Edinburgh University Students’ Union, the National Union of Students UK, and the International Organization for Migration.

Isha Sharma

Associate Director

Isha has been working in the development sector for 7+ years now, in both rural and urban context. In 2014, she earned a Master’s degree in Social Work with a specialization in Women-Centered Practice from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and an undergraduate degree in Political Science and Philosophy from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. She has worked at Central Square Foundation where she identified and supported social entrepreneurs in the school education space. Isha has also supervised an entrepreneurial skills program for 400+ government schools in rural India while working at Going To School, a grassroots organization. Prior to ILSS, Isha was with Genpact Centre for Women’s Leadership at Ashoka University where she worked in initiatives to increase participation of women in the workforce in India across sectors.

Meenal Manolika

Program Manager

Meenal is a social sector professional with extensive experience of working on issues of gender justice. Prior to ILSS, she was with Kamla Bhasin’s Sangat – a Feminist Network where, for 4+ years, she designed and implemented capacity building programs, campaigns, cultural interventions and strengthened feminist networking around gender justice in South Asia. Meenal holds a Bachelor of Engineering from BIT, Mesra and has worked as a Software Engineer for Verizon Data Services India. She has also been a Young India Fellow (2015-16) at Ashoka University.

Mohd Farhan

Associate Director

Farhan holds an MBA in General management from IIM Ahmedabad, and a B.Tech. in Computer Engineering from Jamia Millia Islamia. Prior to ILSS, he worked in the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning team of the National Skill Development Corporation. He is a Social Development expert with hands-on experience in Research/Monitoring & Evaluation/Impact Assessment.

Nupur Mahajan

Associate Director

Nupur brings with her a decade long experience in content creation, training and facilitation, while working with a diverse audience across Edtech, Big4, Health & IT sectors.

Being a hustler at core, Nupur started and continued her entrepreneurial journey of 6.5 years, as one of the Founder Team members at Parwarish– responsible for nurturing the unlimited potential of Human beings.
Since then, she has worked in both corporate and Startup spaces.

In the past, she has been responsible for creating and delivering effective learning programs for Senior Women leaders, Mid management and Early talent during her tenure at Deloitte India Shared Services Pvt. Ltd. She also taught a rigorous 110 hour of Design Thinking course to Global Universities across South Africa, Netherlands as Director of Learning at Ingenious Faces

Nupur holds a Master’s degree in Human Development & Childhood studies (University of Delhi) along with an Advanced Diploma in Guidance and counselling from IP University and is keen on building the Entrepreneurial mindsets in young talent across India

Ritu Mahajan

Director

Ritu comes with 20 + years of industry experience in HR with focus on Talent Acquisation and Capacity Building. Having worked extensively with teams of diverse portfolio, she prioritises commitment to quality, monitoring and accountibility to increase efficiencies & ROI at various stages of project life cycle

Sanymi Gupta

Associate Director

Sanymi brings in a rich experience in Learning & Leadership Development for the social sector. Starting her professional journey as a semiconductor engineer, she soon realized that working for social impact is her core calling. She joined the Teach For India Fellowship in 2014 where she taught 99 girls from an under-resourced community in New Delhi for two years. Post the fellowship, she held different roles with Teach For India Delhi, having led their Fellowship Program in her last role. While at Teach for India, she also had an entrepreneurship stint wherein she started the Books For All Project to facilitate reading habits in students across ages and economic groups.
Sanymi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology. She has also completed a Coaching Fellowship with Teach For All. She is extremely passionate about coaching and helping individuals be their best selves.

Simran Gupta

Program Manager

Simran Gupta is a Program Manager – Placement and Alumni Engagement at ILSS. Simran’s career has spanned across research, teaching, program management, business development, and career services. She has worked with think tanks and educational organisations, in both the social and corporate space.

Prior to ILSS, Simran has served as a Senior Program Manager – Career Services at Masters’ Union where she worked with the founding team building the brand of Masters’ Union, making it India’s unique B-School offering industry immersive business education. She has also worked at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences managing end-to-end academic engagement of Customized Short-term Study in India Programmes for foreign universities and at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in the resource development domain creating more visibility and fundraise for the institute.

Simran holds a M.Phil. in Development Studies from the TISS, Mumbai, M.Sc. in Economics (Development Studies) from the Symbiosis School of Economics, Pune and a BA Economics (H) from St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi.

Swechha Sikaria

Program Associate

Swechha holds an undergraduate degree in History from Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University. Prior to ILSS, she interned with Central Square Foundation, Ministry of Rural Development, and Indian Council for Research in International Economic Relations. She holds a keen interest in research, reading and social history.

Vineet Mittal

Finance and Operations Manager

Vineet comes with over 8 years of experience in Accounting and Finance across sectors. At ILSS he takes care of the organization’s admin and operations apart from the leading the Accounts department. Prior to ILSS, he has held several leadership roles in companies like Koncept Group and Deutsche Motoren. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from Delhi University.