The ILSS Fundraising Program old

Independant Consultant

AMITA PURI

Sr. Director – Development Ashoka University

ANITA BALA SHARAD

Anita is a Marketing and Business Development professional with over 23 years of experience, 14 of which has been in the Development Sector in the area of Resource Mobilisation which covered both fundraising and communications. Prior to joining the development sector, Anita led  advertising agencies in India and abroad, in Account Management and Strategic Planning. For  her, strategy for brands, and services in the advertising space laid the perfect platform to move into the development space where communication plays a very big role.

Founder – CEO

ANU PRASAD

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.

Head – Centre of Excellence for Digital Transformation

Anirban Chaudhury

Anirban leads the Centre of Excellence for Digital Transformation at ILSS. He has more than two decades of experience in delivering strong commercial growth and leading large scale business transformations, for Fortune 500 enterprises, using innovative Data Science & AI frameworks.

He has set-up from scratch and led a number of highly successful analytics & AI enterprises across the globe, and has been instrumental in designing and implementing pioneering AI/ML solutions across various industries.

Prior to ILSS, Anirban has held global strategic and business leadership roles in organisations including Accenture, AXA, HP and GE.

Anirban holds a master’s degree in economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India and is also an alum of The ILSS Leadership Program

Chief Executive Officer IIT Kanpur Development Foundation

KAPIL KAUL

Kapil leads IIT Kanpur Development Foundation (IIT Kanpur’s Development Office) as the Chief Executive Officer. IITK DF supports the Institute’s drive for excellence in Education Research and Innovation. IITK DF is a not for profit established by IIT Kanpur to engage with stakeholders like alumni, corporates, philanthropists, and other well-wishers and to raise resources to meet the Institute’s growth aspirations. He joined IIT Kanpur in February 2021 from IIT Bombay, where he the Vice President Development and Relations.  He is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of proven leadership and rich experience of working with diverse stakeholders and organisations across; Higher Education, Non-Profit and Banking sectors. His professional journey has seen him work with brands like HDFC Bank, ABN AMRO, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Save the Children, and Indian Institute for Human Settlements. Kapil is a management graduate from University of Mumbai and completed his undergraduate degree in commerce from Hindu College, Delhi University.

Lead – Centre of Excellence for Fundraising

Nikita Gupta

Nikita is an impact leader with experience across corporate philanthropy, capacity building, and nonprofit program management. She previously served as the India Lead at Google.org, the global philanthropic arm of Google, wherein she spearheaded Google India’s CSR strategy and grantmaking. She built Google India’s first philanthropic portfolio in Digital Responsibility to reach over 1 million underserved people, in addition to crafting impact partnerships in sustainability, economic opportunity, and AI for Social Good. 

Early in her career, she was a founding team member of the School of Life Foundation, a not-for-profit social enterprise focused on prevention of sexual violence against women and children. She also worked with Kaivalya Education Foundation on large-scale public education reform in rural Rajasthan and municipal schools of Mumbai. 

Nikita holds a Master’s in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and is also an alum of Delhi University and the Gandhi Fellowship.

Head of Social Sector Capacity Building, ATE Chandra Foundation

POONAM CHOKSI

Global Giving Program Lead, Accenture

ROSHNI VENKATESH

Chief Operating Officer, Tech Mahindra Foundation

SAJID ALI

Knowledge Partner & Strategy Advisor

SAMAR VERMA

Samar is a Program Officer at Ford Foundation, leading the program portfolios on public interest technologies, Future of Workers and Philanthropy. He has 25 years of professional experience in the corporate sector, conducting policy research, leading think-tank, international development and research grant management based in India and UK. As Senior Program Specialist at International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, he managed the global Think Tank Initiative program in South Asia & Myanmar which provided multi-year institutional support and technical capacity building to strengthen think tanks. He was the global head of Economic Justice Policy at Oxfam Great Britain leading their global work on trade, agriculture and climate change. He founded the Consortium of Trade and Development; a policy think tank. As Senior Fellow with the think tank ICRIER, he published widely. His writings on public policy are published by Oxford University Press and Sage. He began his career as an economist with the corporate sector. Samar holds a PhD in Economics and an MBA.

Advisor/ Growth Partner/ Angel Investor (Freelance)

SHANTANU GHOSH

Shantanu is currently the Chief Advisor of Institutional Giving at Give India, the largest and the most trusted giving platform in India. He also serves in the Advisory Council of Milaan Foundation. He was the CEO for Social Finance India, a not for profit organization, set up with the objective to serve as a catalytic impact investment intermediary for the social sector.  He has also volunteered his time as an advisor and mentor for multiple social organizations. He is  an active angel investor in technology driven disruptive businesses. He decided to move away from a pure commercial career in early 2019 with the realisation that his core motivation had shifted to contributing to broader social goals beyond commercial business objectives. He had helped build, scale up Genpact from a captive to a premier transformation services company. He spent the first half of his career in B2C businesses with Unilever and GE Consumer Finance (both in India) and GE India as a functional finance leader (CFO) and the second half as business leader for global B2B businesses for Genpact.

Freelance Consultant

SMITA MATHUR JHA

Associate Director – Advancement Indian School of Business

SNIGDHA RAHA

Partner & COO Sattva

SUDHIR SUBBARAMAN

Director – Resource Mobilisation & Communications WaterAid India

VIKAS KATARIA