The ILSS Fundraising Program

Head - Athlete & Women Initiatives Simply Sport Foundation

ADITI MUTATKAR

Aditi is a former international Badminton player, representing India in major events like the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, and World Championships. A Commonwealth Games silver medalist and former world No. 27 in women’s singles, Aditi transitioned to a Master’s in Public Affairs program at UT Dallas, specializing in Nonprofit Management.

After graduation, she returned to India, dedicating herself to building a robust grassroots sports ecosystem. Aditi worked with the Art of Play Foundation, curating curriculum, managing school programs, and fundraising. Presently, she spearheads the ‘Athlete and Women in Sports’ initiative at Simply Sport Foundation, impacting over 5000 athletes through innovative programs. Under her leadership, Simply Sport released a first of it’s kind pilot study in sports that focuses on understanding the barriers that women face to enter the sports ecosystem, titled the ‘Breaking Barriers for Women in Sports’. Aditi’s efforts earned her the prestigious ‘Tarun Tejankit Award’ for raising awareness on menstruation in sports.

Senior Manager, Bridgespan

Aditi Sharma

Aditi is a manager in Bridgespan’s Mumbai office. She has more than eight years of experience in social impact consulting.

At Bridgespan, she has worked with philanthropists and social sector organisations on advisory and knowledge cases including strategy development for a leading domestic philanthropic organization in the area of early childhood education, and a range of multiyear, multi-stakeholder field-building initiatives including the Pay-What-It-Takes India Initiative, and the Community-Driven Change (CDC) Initiative

Before joining Bridgespan, Aditi worked with the Health, Human and Social Services Practice at KPMG in India. She advised and supported government and bi-/multi-lateral clients on policy and strategy, program management, and monitoring and evaluation in the areas of social protection and inclusion, early childhood development, sanitation, and sustainable livelihood. Aditi holds a Masters degree in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Bristol.

Independent Consultant

Amita Puri

Amita has over two decades of experience in the Indian development space and has been exposed to and worked in the areas of child rights, gender, livelihoods, and business and human rights. Her roles have included developing organisational sustainability strategies and being involved in the raising of funds from individual, corporate and institutional donors, both in India and overseas, as well as promoting and influencing philanthropy for social justice issues and supporting the development of an ecosystem for it.

Amita has led organisations and had programme oversight for the entire organisation. Her last few full-time roles included executive director of fundraising, marketing, and communications at CARE India. Previously, she was executive director of All India Artisans and Craftworkers Welfare Association-AIACA and CEO of Charities Aid Foundation, India.

Amita has also worked directly with communities and grantees to facilitate change, been involved in capacity-building and institution-strengthening work, and worked on collaborative models. She currently works as an independent consultant and partners with diverse stakeholders, both within and outside the country.

Institutions and Policy, Tata Trusts

ANIRUDH MENON

Anirudh Menon is a public policy professional based in Bengaluru. Since 2018, he has been with the Tata Trusts, where he leads key projects under the Institutions portfolio. He currently serves on the Advisory Committees of Carnegie India and Modular Open Source Identity Platform at IIIT Bangalore. Previously, he worked as a consultant with PwC and KPMG, advising on urban utilities and corporate governance.

Anirudh is a Chevening Scholar and holds an MPA from University College London and an MSc in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He works on areas of Institution Building, Access to Justice, and Digital Governance.

President Bharat Navodaya Abhiyan

ANOOP MAURYA

Anoop Maurya is the National President of Bharat Navodaya Abhiyan (BNA), leading a global network of over 13 lakh Navodaya alumni. He also serves as CEO of the National Law Scholars Program (NLSP), India’s first residential leadership program to prepare social justice lawyers from the grassroots, developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Education.

With over a decade in education and grassroots activism, Anoop has mobilized ₹15+ crore and built strong partnerships across government and institutions. He is now exploring a statewide initiative in Uttar Pradesh to strengthen the ecosystem through collaboration with government, civil society, and local leadership.

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.

Chief Executive Officer at Adhyayan Quality Education Foundation

Anushri Alva

Anushri has worked as an educator for the last 14 years across East Asia, India, and the US on various education-based programs. Since 2017, she has been a founding team member and CEO of Adhyayan Quality Education Foundation, a not-for-profit that builds the capacity of government schools through evidence-based governance. Their work spans four state governments.

She started her career as a teacher at Teach for India after she went on to work for Sanctuary of Families as a literacy coordinator supporting the educational needs of survivors of gender-based violence.

Anushri received her postgraduate degree in international and comparative education from Columbia University in 2014 and her bachelor’s degree in political science and sociology from the University of Hong Kong. She is an alum of the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship’s Women-Led Accelerator cohort and is an organising committee member of the teacher’s college chapter.

Senior Philanthropy Advisor; Founder Antaraa Advisory

APARNA UPPALURI

Aparna Uppaluri is a global executive and a senior philanthropy advisor.  Recently she founded Antara Advisory, a specialised strategic philanthropy impact advisory.  She is Special Advisor to the Grow for Climate Fund and serves on the global advisory body of Equal Measures 2030, and the Sustainable Futures Collaborative, and on the boards of global foundations.  Until recently she was the Chief Operating Officer, leading philanthropic programs at the Tata Trusts with operational and strategic planning oversight over all thematic areas including livelihoods, health, nutrition, WaSH as well as Arts & Culture.  In her previous role, she served as Senior Global Program Officer at the Ford Foundation and acting Program Director of the Foundation’s India, Nepal, Sri Lanka office.  Her global work has included nurturing philanthropic collaboratives, intergovernmental partnerships, and strategic field building.  She led the Science and Society Program at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), India and founded a performing arts collective which she ran for 10 years.  She is an epidemiologist and public health professional by academic training. 

Partner at Sattva, Leads Nonprofit Advisory Practice

Arun Nathan

Over the past two decades, Arun has worked extensively across social and corporate sectors. This includes heading CSR and Sustainability functions (L&T Finance, Lifestyle International Private Ltd, IDFC Group); leading philanthropy efforts (Jagtiani Foundation); and teaching (IRMA, TERI University, Shiv Nadar University). 

He has also held leadership roles in implementing organisations (Restless Development International, Gramin Vikas Trust, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation) across South Asia, Africa, and Europe and led programs on livelihoods and skilling, micro-enterprise development, health, education, natural resources management, and women’s empowerment.

Arun is an alumnus of The London School of Economics and IRMA.

Director, Point of View 

BISHAKHA DATTA

Bishakha Datta works on gender and sexuality in digital spaces, runs the non-profit Point of View in Mumbai, writes and films non-fiction and is part of the Wikipedia family. In all her work, Bishakha explores marginal, invisible, and silenced points of view – or those considered illegitimate. Her documentary work includes In The Flesh, a film on the lives of three sex workers, and Taza Khabar, which explores a unique women-run rural newspaper. She’s edited two anthologies, one on rural women in politics, the other on gender-based violence.

Bishakha is also a co-founder of Deep Dives, an award-winning online publication that publishes long-form narratives.

Co-founder, Pramiti, Philanthropy Partners

Deepa Vardarajan

Deepa is the co-founder of Pramiti Philanthropy Partners. Pramiti provides holistic advice and assistance to philanthropists to enable them to achieve their long-term philanthropic objectives in their preferred areas of interest. They assist philanthropy and corporates with philanthropy strategy and roadmap, partner organisation identification and diligence, ongoing grant monitoring and evaluation, and philanthropy portfolio management.

Deepa brings over a decade of experience in philanthropy advisory and grant assessments, including diligence, monitoring and evaluation. having worked with Asha for Education-Dallas (volunteer capacity, Givelndia, Dasra and India Philanthropy Initiative (housed under Azim Premji Foundation). Deepa built the HNI Giving vertical at Givendia to engage and assist over 50 HNI/UHNI families in their personal philanthropy by providing customised solutions (including but not limited to connecting to NGOs, experts, grant management. monitoring, peer connects) to meet their philanthropic objectives.

Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Danamojo

Dhaval Udani

Dhaval, the founder & CEO of danamojo is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a computer science graduate from VJTI, Mumbai. Dhaval has over 20 years of experience spanning technology, management consulting, and philanthropy advisory. Dhaval has worked with multinationals such as Citigroup and A.T. Kearney before he began his social sector journey with GiveIndia, initially as a volunteer for two and a half years and then in a full-time role. He started by leading their operations, technology, and online giving teams before leading GiveIndia as the CEO for four years. During his association with GiveIndia, he helped increase donations by individuals from Rs. 7 cr to Rs. 42 cr through more than 150,000 donors.

Dhaval currently runs danamojo, India’s first payment solutions platform specifically designed for NGOs. It enables more than 1,100 NGOs to access compliant payment systems channelling over Rs. 50 cr by retail donors. Danamojo has been funded by Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Social Alpha. In 2018, its technology platform was awarded the NASSCOM Social Innovation Award, and it has gained multiple other awards and recognitions.

Dhaval has been widely quoted in various press media on issues related to individual donations and the overall sector. He has also authored articles for various publications, including The Times of India, Forbes, and Hindu Business Line. Dhaval is also an Aspen Fellow and part of its India Leadership Initiative.

Co-Founder, Mann

DILSHAD MEHERSHAHI

Dilshad Mehershahi is the Co-founder and Head of Fundraising & Employments at Mann, a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing skill training and employment opportunities to adults with disabilities from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. With a Bachelor’s in Commerce and a Master’s in Special Education, she brings 18 years of experience to the field, including 14 years leading and managing Mann. Her deep commitment to inclusion is driven by a passion for building a society where every adult with disabilities is recognised for their strengths. Under her leadership, Mann has empowered numerous individuals through tailored programs that promote independence and dignity. Dilshad’s work reflects her unwavering belief in equal opportunities and the power of inclusive growth.

Chair, The Resource Alliance

Ingrid Srinath

Ingrid has been a passionate advocate for human rights, social justice and civil society for the past 25 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 has served as secretary-general at CIVICUS, executive director of CHILDLINE India Foundation, CEO of Hivos India and, most recently, as founder director of the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy (CSIP) at Ashoka University. She currently serves on the Governing Council of the new BSE Social Stock Exchange and the boards of Co-Impact, WINGS, the Resource Alliance, Majlis Law, IIM Calcutta Innovation Park and the Bangalore Museum of Art and Photography.

CEO and Senior Executive Coach

J. RajaGopal 

Raj is a seasoned management consultant with over 35 years of experience, collaborating with marquee clients globally across various industries and organisational levels. He has held significant roles as the managing director of KPMG Consulting (India) and Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC). Additionally, Raj has held two global roles at TCS as head of its Life Sciences & Healthcare Practice and the Global Consulting Practice. Known for his exceptional leadership and people empowerment skills, Raj boasts a proven track record in talent identification and development. He has successfully coached numerous individuals into leadership positions, focusing on guiding leaders through career transitions globally, including expats in India and Indian managers abroad.

Raj is the visionary behind Coach4Good, a groundbreaking sustainable coaching platform for social organisations in India. With over 750 hours of coaching experience with individuals and groups, he is passionately dedicated to helping people “Be the best they can be.” Beyond his professional achievements, he has served as a board member of the Association of Management Consulting Firms (AMCF, New York). Raj is a sought-after speaker at prestigious international and national forums and currently serves as the Class Secretary for the Harvard AMP class 114. Raj is a Chartered Accountant & Company Secretary from India, Certified Management Accountant from the UK, an MBA from the US and has completed the Advanced Management Program from the Harvard Business School.

Strategy Head, Janaagraha

Krishnan S

Krishnan leads the strategy function at Janaagraha, a non-profit that aims to systemically transform India’s cities. He works closely with the CEO to implement the organisational strategy and operating model, scope and anchor institutional partnerships, support organisation development initiatives, watch emerging trends and shape Janaagraha’s response to them over the medium and long term. Prior to this, he was part of the early leadership team at Central Square Foundation, where he spent more than eight years working at the intersection of governments, non-profits, researchers and funders to drive system-led reform in India’s school education sector. His commitment to the development sector was seeded through the Teach for India fellowship, where he led a class of 45 students in an under-resourced school towards academic and social success as a full-time teacher for two years. He started his career with a short stint in Infrastructure Project Finance at Axis Bank. Krishnan holds an MBA in finance and economics from XLRI, Jamshedpur, and is a gold medalist in instrumentation and control engineering from NIT, Trichy.

Associate Director Dream a Dream

MAHI TITUS

Mahi is the Associate Director of Fundraising at Dream a Dream, where she champions a relational fundraising approach to shift mindsets and mobilize resources toward “Thriving as the purpose of Education.” With a focus on systemic change, she leads fundraising strategy, nurtures major donors, and secures long-term institutional support. Mahi builds processes that enable strategic alignment and agile decision-making, amplifying the organization’s credibility nationally and globally. Previously, she led major transformation initiatives in the microfinance sector. Mahi holds a postgraduate degree in Development Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and a B.A.(Hons) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College.

Partner, COO, Business & Strategy Head Studio Subu

Meghna Rakshit

Meghna is a partner and business head at Studio Subu. She has over 20 years of experience in marketing and communications with corporate and social sector companies. She is passionate about leveraging communications to drive gender equality and empower women. Meghna holds an MBA from the Indian School of Business and a BA in Marketing and Psychology from Hamilton College, NY. She brings extensive experience in user-centred problem-solving, communications, business planning and design thinking to her work. She sits on the advisory board of ATMA and has been a speaker at several development sector forums.

Prior to Studio Subu, Meghna worked as a communications director at Womanity Foundation and Teach For India. Her corporate experience includes working as a media planner at Mindshare New York & Mumbai and as a marketing strategist at 9.9 Media, and Anandabazar Patrika.

Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy

Noshir Dadrawala

Noshir is CEO of the Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy (CAP), through which he offers compliance-related advisory services to nonprofits and corporate social initiatives. His career spans over 35 years in the nonprofit sector, working with a diverse range of organisations, from large established national and global organisations to corporate and family grantmakers to start-ups.

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

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

In India, he serves as a trustee of the Forbes Marshall Foundation, Everest Industries Foundation, Collective Good Foundation, G. J. Kapoor Foundation, Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra, Ashta No Kai Foundation, Make a Wish Foundation and the Bombay Community Trust. He is also a member of the audit committee of the Akshay Patra Foundation.

Noshir has authored several resource books and is currently an active blogger on compliance-related issues for NPOs. He is also a speaker at many local and international conferences and guest faculty at leading business schools.

Senior Consultant | Sattva

PHUHAAR GOEL

Phuhaar Goel comes with 8+ years of experience across finance and social sector with more than half a decade as a social impact consultant. As part of her training to become a CA, she worked at CA firms across auditing and financial consulting. However she soon found her true calling in driving social change. She shifted gears to pursue her passion and is a holder of a Masters degree in Social Entrepreneurship from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Currently at Sattva, she is actualising her commitment to maximise social impact by enabling nonprofit’s to grow and be future ready. As a Senior Consultant, she leads projects with nonprofits catering to their strategy needs across organisation, functions or programs. She leverages her experience of working with both sides of the table i.e. funders and nonprofits in her work today

CEO Mariwala Health Initiative

PRITI SRIDHAR

Priti Sridhar is CEO at MHI. She focuses on building the Grants portfolio which is primarily community led, spearheads the advocacy initiatives where she leads the work on Suicide Prevention, Workplace Mental Health, working with government and collaborating with Funders to invest in mental health. Priti has been able to conceptualise and implement programs and training to build the mental health ecosystem in India. She has 25 years of work experience and has worked with Not-for-profit organisations working on the issue of Mental health, Child Rights and Homelessness as well with For-Profit organisations in Banking, Financial Services and Ratings. Priti has extensive knowledge in Finance, Strategy and HR and aims to combine these experiences with her interests in rights-based mental health to spotlight and support organisations and leaders providing community-based interventions.

Founder and CEO, PQ Consulting Assistant Vice President, Old Dominion University

PRIYA PANIKKAR

Priya has over two decades of experience in fundraising and related operations. She is the CEO and founder of PQ (Philanthropy Quotient) Solutions. The company helps nonprofits make a positive difference in their communities by providing consulting, knowledge, and software services. Priya has a long tenure at Old Dominion University, where she leads the fundraising operations team.

Priya is a faculty member at the Indian Leaders for the Social Sector (ILSS) and the Naropa Fellowship. She holds master’s degrees from Old Dominion University and the University of Kerala. She earned her Executive Education in Nonprofit Leadership and Management from Harvard University.

Founder and Story Coach, Story Rules

Ravishankar Iyer

Ravi is a storytelling coach and consultant and operates under the brand name of ‘Story Rules’. He enjoys enabling mid-senior-level leaders to improve their work outcomes by using effective storytelling techniques. He has successfully delivered training programs to varied marquee clients like Accenture, JPMorgan, Google, Walmart and many more.

While his overall work experience is about 18 years, his core skills were learnt in a seven-year management consulting stint, where he led teams that made information-rich presentation stories to demanding clients such as PE funds and leading corporates. These skills were enhanced in his role as co-founder and chief storyteller at CaptivaTour – India’s leading mobile audio-guides app for historical monuments.

Ravi is a rank-holder chartered accountant (2001) who subsequently completed his MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad in 2005. He loves reading history and other nonfiction and listening to podcasts. He writes on business storytelling on his LinkedIn page and at www.storyrules.in/blog.

Partner & India lead (Rural Prosperity) Bridgespan

Shashank Rastogi

Shashank is a principal in The Bridgespan Group, where he leads the rural prosperity vertical in India and is co-leading the Pay-What-It-Takes India Initiative, which focuses on transforming funder-NGO relationships.

At Bridgespan, he has supported CSR organisations, philanthropic foundations, and NGOs across sectors to envision a better, just, and equitable future and develop a strategy to strive for it. He has also led and co-authored several reports, such as Bridging the Gap on Funding the True Costs of NGOs in India, Building Strong, Resilient NGOs in India: Time for New Funding Practices, and Building High Impact CSR programs in India.

In his prior social sector experience, Shashank set up and developed the impact investing practice in CIIE.CO at IIM Ahmedabad invests in companies in a range of sectors, including rural energy access, agriculture and agtech, and health. He was also the co-founder and chief operating officer of Sarvajal.

Co Founder, TeamStreet Fundraising Solutions

Sushanta Gupta

Sushanta is a fundraising expert and donor retention strategist with 16 years of experience in fundraising, sales, and donor communications. He specialises in designing long-term income development plans and implementing strategic fundraising efforts to maximise fundraising opportunities in a growth market.

He has held management and consulting positions with multiple non-profit organisations in India, such as Greenpeace, Amnesty, MSF India, and various international foundations. He is the co-founder of TeamStreet Fundraising Solutions and leads consulting projects and initiatives at TeamStreet.

Dy CEO, Resource Mobilisation & Partnerships, Adhyayan Quality Education Foundation

Tiasha Banerjee

Tiasha leads fundraising, focusing on institutional donors and partnerships, for Adhyayan Quality Education Foundation, a capacity-building organisation dedicated to improving the quality of educational leadership and learning outcomes. She is also an active member of the vartaLeap Coalition—Youth Collective.

Tiasha completed her master’s in development at Azim Premji University, Bangalore, and her bachelor’s in mass media from Sophia College for Women, Mumbai. She has been a Teach for India Fellow, teaching students in grades 8 and 9 in a low-income private school in Pune. She is an alum of The ILSS Emerging Women’s Leadership Program.

Senior Director, Antarang Foundation

VENIL ALI

Venil Ali has been working in the Development sector informally since 2004. In 2009, Venil joined the first cohort of the Teach For India Fellowship, after which, she joined Teach For India as a staff member. She worked as a Program Manager, Senior Program Manager and then was the City Director of Mumbai for six years. As City Director, she would oversee different verticals like Fellow support and development, fundraising, and alumni engagement. She is currently working at Antarang Foundation as Senior Director – Programs & Scale.

She hosts a podcast called ‘A New Kind of Celebrity’ and is pursuing an LLB (Law) Degree from Government Law College, Mumbai. She was part of the founding cohort of LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program in 2022. She serves as a mentor through structured programs at BITS Pilani and SPJIMR. She also speaks at different events including TEDx talks.

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

Venkatesam Eshwara

Venkat is currently Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Development, Placements, and Alumni Relations at Ashoka University. His responsibilities include fundraising, providing leadership and developing and implementing strategy for the institution. Before this, he held central roles in top management with organisations of diverse profiles. His core strengths lie in building, growing and managing geographically diverse operations.

With an entrepreneurial and start-up experience of 20 years, Venkat has built three companies from inception to significant growth and profitability. Venkat is an alumnus of St. Xaviers College, Calcutta. June 2022 marked his tenth year at Ashoka University.