ABHISHEK RANJAN

Director of Sustainability & CSR, Brillio Chairman- CSR for Southern Region, ASSOCHAM

As the global head of Brillio’s sustainability programs and associated thought leadership and communications, Abhishek built the sustainability practice along with the award-winning CSR program “Brillio Bringing Smiles – which aimed at helping 100,000+ underserved children. He is leading Carbon Neutral program, D&I, Alumni Programs, and Employee outreach at Brillio.

Abhishek is an alumnus of IMT Ghaziabad and has done an executive management program in CSR from IIMB. He started his career with IBM and later worked for Oracle FSSL. Abhishek is an adjunct faculty at Christ University and teaches Sustainability and CSR at IMTG, Nalanda University and NMIMS. He is also member of Board of Studies at Tumkur University. Abhishek is the head of the ASSOCHAM’s South India CSR forum and does pro-bono volunteering with Rotary and several social and non-profit organizations. He was  recently awarded as CSR Person of the Year – 2021 by India CSR Network and Top 20 Diversity Leaders of 2021 by JobsForHer.

Aditya Natraj

Chief Executive Officer, Kaivalya Education Foundation & Piramal Foundation

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.

Adrian Sargeant

Co-Founder & Co-Director, Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy

Adrian Sargeant is the Co-Director of the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy. He was formerly the first Hartsook Chair in Fundraising at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. Adrian is a Visiting Professor of Fundraising at Avila University and the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. In 2010 in the United States he was named to the prestigious Nonprofit Times, Power and Influence list and in the same year received a Civil Society award in the UK for his services to the profession of fundraising. In 2016 he received a lifetime achievement award from the Institute of Fundraising. Adrian designed the UK’s system of professional education for fundraisers and is currently working on the European qualification framework for the European Fundraising Association.

ANITA BALA SHARAD

Director - Marketing and Resource Mobilisation, Plan India

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.

ANOJ VISWANATHAN

Co-founder and President Milaap

An alumnus of the National University of Singapore, Anoj is the Co-founder and President of Milaap, India’s largest crowdfunding platform, where he largely oversees all business operations. The desire for a world where people can express support and encourage each other inspired him to start a crowdfunding platform that would be simple and accessible to everyone.

His past experience has been at the intersection of technology, finance, and social good  through his professional roles with ReEx Capital (Investment boutique for renewable energy), Bharat Financial Inclusion and D.light design (next-generation solar lighting products), and MicroAppli (social network for mobile photos and videos).

Ashish Dhawan

Philanthropist & Founder, Central Square Foundation

Ashish Dhawan is Founder and Chairman of Central Square Foundation (CSF) and a Founding Member of Ashoka University. Prior to this, he worked for twenty years in the investment management business and ran one of India’s leading private equity funds, ChrysCapital. In June 2012, he left his full-time role at Chrys Capital to start CSF to pursue evidence driven and innovation led system reform in school education. Ashoka University is a not for profit university that aims to offer an Ivy League-quality undergraduate programme in India, based on the US liberal education system. Ashish is also the founder of two new organisations to address the talent gap in the social sector –
ISDM: A development management institute and ILSS: A program to transition experienced corporate talent into the development sector. More recently, Ashish has also created the Foundation for Economic Development (FED) to focus on policy reform in the agriculture sector. He also serves on the board of several non-profits including 3.2.1 Education Foundation, Teach For India, Centre for Civil Society, Bharti Foundation and India School Leadership Institute, Network for Quality Education, Khan Academy India, and Social Finance India. He is an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and a dual bachelor’s (BS/BA) holder with Magna Cum Laude honours from Yale University. He is on the Chair of India Advisory Board of Harvard Business School and a member of Yale’s Development Council.

CHETAN KAPOOR

Chief Operating Officer Tech Mahindra Foundation

Chetan joined the Tech Mahindra Foundation in October 2016 and has conceptualised and helped set up the Foundation’s flagship Skill Development program. He is also a part of the Senior Education Committee of FICCI and has also served as a Consultant for the Tata Trusts. Prior to joining the Foundation, Chetan ran his own resource and consulting company Edulever which he had founded in 2009. Chetan is also the co-founder of Agrasar, a developmental organisation working for Skills, Social Security, and Education in Gurgaon. An early childhood and primary education program that he has started and is closely associated with is Sahpathi. He has worked with the American India Foundation (AIF). Before this, he was the Director of Programs with Pratham where he worked extensively in the field of primary education, heading programs in Delhi and then in North India. Chetan has an MBA in International Business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce

Deval Sanghavi

Co-Founder & Partner Dasra

Starting out working with street children in Mumbai in 1996, Deval’s passion and commitment to serve marginalized communities led to the creation of Dasra over 2 decades ago. By working with NGO founders and leadership teams helping them dream big and providing them with strategic and operational support to create greater impact, he has played a critical role in the incubation or scaling of organizations including Magic Bus, Villgro, Sharanam Centre, Educate Girls and Aangan Trust. These grounded experiences have allowed him to share insights with newer philanthropists and established foundations leading to over INR 350 crores of funding being committed to NGOs and India’s development sector. He firmly believes in collaborative action to achieve Dasra’s goal of a transformed India where a billion thrive with dignity and equity.

Gaurav Gupta

Partner & Founder, Dalberg Asia

Gaurav Gupta is Partner and Founder of Dalberg Asia. Dalberg is a global strategy and policy advisory firm focused on global development. He globally heads Dalberg’s Energy and Environment practice as well as it’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning practice which has led him to evaluate and advise on large social programs across the globe. Outside of Dalberg, Gaurav sits on the Board of Educate Girls, one of India’s largest NGOs focused on girl education and empowerment. He also is an angel investor in social enterprises.

Prior to Dalberg, Gaurav was at The Boston Consulting Group in Sydney and London. He holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford and an MA in International and Development Economics from Yale University. He also attended the United World College of Hong Kong as a Fairfax Scholar.

Geeta Goel

Country Director, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

Geeta is Country Director, India at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. In her role, Geeta manages the strategy and implementation of the foundation’s work in India in two key areas of Education and Family Economic Stability. Geeta has represented the foundation on several Boards of its investee companies, including Ujjivan, Janalakshmi, Swadhaar, Arohan, and Micro Housing Finance Corporation. She is also on the Investment Committee of India Educational Investment Fund and Education Catalyst Fund and has served as Chairperson of the Impact Investors Council in India from April 2017 to March 2019. Geeta is on the Advisory Board of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad’s Advancement Trust. In 2020, she was nominated by Forbes India’s list of Women Power – 20 women changing the game, and in 2017, she was amongst Business Today’s 30 Most Powerful Women in Impact. Before joining the foundation, Geeta spent more than 12 years with PwC. She is an alumna of the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) and Lady Shri Ram College (Delhi).

GITANJALI GANDHIOK

Assistant VP - Development Ashoka University

Gitanjali has a career spanning 24 years with diverse experience, across end to end operations, leadership advisory services, organisation and capability building, business integration, project management and change & organisational transformation initiatives. She has worked in start-ups and multinationals, in close proximity to businesses and their leaders, to deliver value through appropriately aligning people, processes and business objectives to organisation-wide goals. She earned her MBA from the National University of Singapore and B.A. (Hons.) in Political Science from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University. She is also a certified Life Coach and a Volunteer Mentor with The Aspire Foundation.

Prior to joining Ashoka University, she worked with Egon Zehnder, Odgers Berndtson and Microsoft. She joined Ashoka in July 2018 as Director Development to help strengthen the fundraising efforts of the university.

KRISHNAN S

Partnerships & New Initiatives Team Central Square Foundation

Krishnan leads the Partnerships & New Initiatives Team at Central Square Foundation (CSF), where he works with an ecosystem of partners to drive system-led reform in the school education sector, and also manages key donor relationships for the organization. Prior to this, he set up CSF’s Grant Accelerator, focused on building and supporting innovative early stage non-profits and also led the landscaping, investment and government engagements for their Early Childhood Education (ECE) and School to Work Transition (SWT) practices, among others. Krishnan transitioned from a corporate banking job to the development sector through the Teach for India (TFI) 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 2 years. He continues to be associated with TFI as a member of their National Advisory Board. Krishnan holds an MBA in Finance and Economics from XLRI, Jamshedpur and an undergraduate degree in engineering from NIT, Trichy.

KSHITIJA KRISHNASWAMY

MD- Corporate Citizenship Accenture Solutions Private Limited

Kshitija Krishnaswamy is the Managing Director, Corporate Citizenship for Accenture in India, overseeing the company’s social responsibility mandate in the country since 2007.  Her expertise and experience over the last 14 years in CSR strategy and program management has helped Accenture achieve its global goal of skilling 3 million people by 2020, by successfully training several thousands of people in India in securing a job or starting a business.

An MBA from Bombay University, Kshitija has worked for over fifteen years in Marketing and Business Strategy, with reputed corporates like Levi Strauss, 3M and Cadburys prior to joining Accenture. Just prior to joining Accenture she was an independent consultant to several blue chip organizations.

Ingrid Srinath

Director, Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy, Ashoka University

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.

MALLIKA AHLUWALIA

Indian Regional Director IDinsight

Mallika is the India Regional Director, based in New Delhi. Most recently, she was the CEO and co-founder of the world’s first museum to memorialize the Partition of India. Under her leadership, the Partition Museum was developed as a state-of-the-art, interactive resource center for the study and understanding of Partition, welcoming thousands of visitors monthly.

Prior to IDinsight, Mallika was the Country Lead for Health Systems Design at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Delhi. While at the Gates Foundation, she anchored the Foundation’s work to bring increased accountability, access, quality of care, and financial risk protection through cross-cutting health system approaches. Mallika also worked with McKinsey & Company and the Indian Ministry of Rural Development on the National Rural Livelihoods Mission. Mallika brings an impressive background in global development, evidence-informed decision making, and coalition building.

MOUTUSHI SENGUPTA

Director-India MacArthur Foundation

Moutushi is a social sector professional with more than 26 years of leadership experience in developing, executing and evaluating organization-wide and program strategies, with development institutions of global repute. She currently leads the India Office of the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation. Over her career, she has led and worked with several multicultural and multi-disciplinary teams to identify and execute programme interventions aimed at achieving systemic changes across sectors. Her specific areas of expertise include developing and executing program strategies, making institutional grants, designing large program initiatives and developing frameworks for measuring results for interventions supported.

In addition, Moutushi is registered as an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, US and has coached several leaders from the non-profit sector.

NAMITA DALMIA

Director – Investments Omidyar Network India

Namita is an engineer from IIT Bombay and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. She has been working at the intersection of innovations and policy discussions in education and skilling. In her most recent role as the Director of Investments at Omidyar Network India, she led impact investing in the education sector for the organization. In her previous role at Central Square Foundation, she incubated and launched several edtech initiatives and supported state/central governments on building their edtech platforms . Previous to this, she worked at a national policy think-tank focused on education and an edtech start-up in the Bay Area

Noshir Dadrawala

Programme Director - Legal & CSR Compliance, Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy

Noshir H. Dadrawala is CEO, Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy (CAP) through which he has been offering compliance related advisory to nonprofits and corporate social initiatives. His career spans over 35 years in the nonprofit sector, working with a diverse range of organisations, from large established national and global organisations, to corporate and family grant makers, to start ups. Drawing upon three decades of hands-on experience and practical insights, Noshir’s main role at CAP involves simplifying the confusing and complex maze of old, but ever changing, new laws. Noshir’s legal expertise in the sector is widely recognized, as is his deep understanding of compliance within philanthropy.

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

In India, he serves as a trustee of a few Foundations namely the Forbes Marshall Foundation, Everest Industries Foundation and the Bombay Community Trust.

Noshir has authored several resource books and is also invited as a speaker at many local and international conferences and as guest faculty at leading business schools.

Pritha Venkatachalam

Partner, The Bridgespan Group

Pritha is a Partner in Bridgespan’s Mumbai office. Pritha has been a Research Scholar at the Development Studies Institute at the London School of Economics. Prior to joining Bridgespan, Pritha established and led the New Delhi office of Dalberg Global Development Advisors, where she co-led the Global Health and Nutrition practice area. Previously, Pritha was a Director at Cambridge Economic Policy Associates (CEPA) UK, where she worked for almost a decade. She set up CEPA’s first international office in New Delhi and directed development mandates in Asia and Africa across public health, agriculture and infrastructure sectors. Pritha’s earlier responsibilities include being a financial specialist at the World Bank on urban infrastructure projects, and a Senior Consultant at Accenture in London and New Delhi. Pritha holds a Masters in Development Management from the London School of Economics and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore including an exchange program at Melbourne Business School. She is a recipient of the Citibank Leadership Award.

PRIYA PANIKKAR

Founder and CEO, PQ ConsultingAssistant Vice President, Old Dominion University

Priya has over twenty years of experience in fundraising, and related operations and services. She founded PQ (Philanthropy Quotient) Consulting in 2019. PQ consulting provides fundraising services to nonprofits, and philanthropy services to donors to accomplish their mission effectively and efficiently. Priya leads the University Advancement’s Operations team with responsibility for prospect research and analytics; human resources; database management and reporting; information technology and systems; and creative communication services. In addition, Priya has managed two capital campaigns that raised over $155 million dollars; spearheaded the 85 Hours of Giving campaign. Currently, she also serves as the Judge Coordinator for the annual CASE (Council for Advancement for Secondary Education) conference in the US. She holds an M.A. in Economics from Old Dominion University, VA, and from the University of Kerala, India.

Priya Naik

Founder & CEO, SAMHITA

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

RACHANA IYER

Head - CSR IDFC FIRST Bank

Rachana Iyer leads the social impact practice at IDFC FIRST Bank. She has a multi-sectoral experience of having worked with various players in the eco-system from non-profits, social businesses, incubators and corporate citizenship.

An alumna of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, she has worked across India, East Africa and the U.S on development projects focusing on Health, Education, Gender, Agriculture and Mental Health.

At the Bank, she drives social innovation initiatives engaging stakeholders across their employee, customer and impact eco-system.

RAVISHANKAR IYER

Founder and Story Coach, Story Rules

Ravi is a storytelling coach and consultant and operates under the brand name of ‘Story Rules’. He enjoys enabling mid-senior level leaders 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. 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. Ravi is a rank-holder Chartered Accountant (2001) and subsequently did his MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad in 2005. He writes on business storytelling on his LinkedIn page and at www.storyrules.in/blog.

Dr Rukmini Banerji

Chief Executive Officer, Pratham Education Foundation

Rukmini Banerji is Chief Executive Officer of Pratham Education Foundation.

She joined Pratham in 1996. Over the years, she has learned a lot from working directly with children of all ages in villages and urban slums. She also has experience of working in large scale partnerships with governments for improving basic reading and arithmetic of children in primary schools. Rukmini led Pratham’s research and assessment efforts for many years including the well-known nationwide ASER initiative (Annual Status of Education Report) from 2005 to 2014. Originally from Bihar, Rukmini now is based in Delhi. She loves being a grandmother and telling and writing stories for children.

RUSSELL MASCARENHAS

Deputy Director- Digital Fundraising and Head, Marcomm Rootbridge

A marketer with a decade of experience across health tech, real estate, and eCommerce verticals; Russell leverages his growth marketing skills to help non-profits achieve success in retail fundraising. As a millennial marketer, he believes fundraisers are the marketers of the non-profit space, irrespective of their chosen channel of fundraising. He’s currently heading the Digital Fundraising and Marcomm wing of Rootbridge to enable their mission of helping non-profits start their retail fundraising journey.

SAMAR VERMA

Program Officer Ford Foundation

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

SAURABH BAINS

Project Manager Central Square Foundation

Saurabh is a Project Manager at Central Square Foundation (CSF) and has been with the foundation for 3 years. He works in the Partnerships and New Initiatives team, where he supports nonprofit startups on strategy, leads fundraising strategy for the portfolio and manages fundraising and strategic partnerships for CSF. Before CSF, he worked on building a digital platform for the primary healthcare centres with the Govt of Delhi. He has also worked as a Product Manager at Paytm where he led the launch of products across payments, banking and eCommerce. He is an engineering graduate from NSIT, Delhi.

Safeena Husain

Founder & Executive Director, Educate Girls

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.

Shridhar Venkat

CEO, Akshay Patra Foundation

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.

SHYAAM SUBRAMANIAN

Former Chief Program Officer & Head of Strategy Teach for India

Shyaam is currently Vice President of True North Co. Previously, he was the Chief Program Officer and the Head of Strategy and HR at Teach For India. He is a seasoned organizational development professional with expertise in program design, operations transformation and capability building across sectors with education being the most recent. At TFI, Shyaam has managed operations, and led impact framework design and implementation. He also anchored key donor relations – especially with identified private sector organizations and with select international foundations. Shyaam is also an advisory Board member with Leadership For Equity – a delivery and Consulting organisation that helps scale innovations in India’s public education system.

Srikrishna Sridhar Murthy (Krishna)

Founder & CEO, Sattva

Krishna is the Founder and CEO at Sattva and is responsible for the overall strategic direction, growth and impact of the organisation. Over the last decade, Krishna has been working with the leadership of Global Foundations, Social Organisations and Corporates to design and scale their social impact initiatives, across India, SE Asia, Africa and Europe. Krishna leads many collective impact initiatives across different themes like water, education, livelihoods and is an active member of the CII National Committee on Sports.

Krishna started his career as an early member of Dell R&D in India and was the Founding Partner of Longhouse Consulting, a boutique executive search firm focused on technology and emerging sectors in India. Krishna is an alumnus of BITS, Pilani and INSEAD and serves on the Advisory Board of multiple social impact and technology start-ups.

SRIRAM VENKATRAMAN

Director – Partnerships and Engagements, The/Nudge Foundation

Sriram heads partnerships and engagements at The/Nudge Foundation where he works closely with foundations, corporates and individuals towards poverty alleviation, sustainably and at scale. Prior to leading fundraising for The/Nudge, Sriram led community engagement at The/Nudge Centre for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

An undergraduate from the BITS, Pilani, Sriram spent 8 yrs in healthcare consulting and market research before his entrepreneurial journey in 2011 led him to build the India community mobilization and individual fundraising at Amnesty International towards protection of human rights in India. In 2015, he joined The/Nudge Foundation as part of its leadership team.

Sundeep Talwar

CMO, The Akshaya Patra Foundation

Sundeep Talwar is the Chief Marketing Officer of The Akshaya Patra Foundation, the World’s largest school meal program run by an NGO feeding over 1.8 million children every day in 51 locations and 13 states in India.

Akshaya Patra has received ‘Gold Shield ‘ award for 6th time in a row from the prestigious Institute of Chartered Accountants ( ICAI ) of India for excellence in financial reporting.  It’s in the hall of fame of ICAI.  Harvard Business School has done a case study on Akshayapatra. MIT has featured it in its technology review. Akshaya Patra has been covered by Forbes Magazine, National Geographic, Discovery channel, CNN, BBC, etc. AkshayaPatra has also been certified as “ Great Place to Work by the GPW Institute of India in the category of Small & Mid sized organizations.

Sundeep is a dual Post Graduate in Management from Duke & IIM-Ahmedabad and certified Black-Belt in Quality with over 26 years of work experience in the areas of marketing & communications with leading corporates especially in Telecom Sector.

Before joining Akshaya Patra, as CMO, he was associated as National Business Head (Mobility Operations) with Aircel driving the Mobile Banking operations nationally. Prior to that, he has essayed Senior Leadership Roles with brands like Bharti Airtel, Motorola, Escotel (Idea) & Essar (Vodafone) across country and in Africa. He is also awarded with an international accreditation from BID  Spain for developing the first anti-virus application He is a vivid professional Trainer too and have talked on various subjects in prestigious schools like IIM, IIPM, IMT over years

His search for ‘Existential Purpose’ in life made him quit a corporate career and join the Akshaya Patra Foundation, a not-for-profit organization with a vision that ‘No Child in India shall be deprived of Education because of Hunger’.

Akshaya Patra’s mission is to feed ‘5 million children daily by 2025 ‘. It has been rated as one of the top 100 NGOs in the world (ranking 23) by the Global Journal of Geneva and recently, in Feb’19 our Honorable Prime Minister, Narender Modi jee served the 3 Billionth meal.

SUMAN SRIVASTAVA

Author and Founder, Marketing Unplugged

Suman Srivastava is Founder of the consultancy firm, Marketing Unplugged. He is also the author of Marketing Unplugged: Spotting the elephants in the room.

A graduate of Delhi University, IIM Ahmedabad and IMD Lausanne, he has been the CEO of Euro RSCG India (now called Havas) and also Chief Strategy Officer for Euro RSCG Asia Pacific. He was the Chairman of Euro RSCG’s emerging markets planning council and a member of the global management committee. Lastly, he was Vice Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer of FCB Ulka Group in India.

He has been active in the social sector since 2005 and has helped numerous organisations with their marketing and communications strategies. He is currently on the legal or advisory boards of the following social purpose organisations: Apnalaya, Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), Samhita Social Ventures, DanaMojo, and eVidyaloka.

UNNIKRISHNAN TS

CSR Head, Greater Eastern CSR Foundation Greater Eastern Shipping Pvt Ltd

Unni leads Great Eastern CSR Foundation, the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of the Great Eastern Shipping Pvt. Ltd. Unni was previously with GMR Group where he initiated the GMR Foundation’s work in Bangalore and later led the CSR vertical at Delhi International Airport (P) Ltd.

Unni has notable grassroots work experience on the issues of street children and child labour and is credited for developing rewarding partnerships between varied stakeholders – corporates, CSR Foundations, and development sector organizations, all through his career.

He has over two decades of work experience and is graduated with a Master’s in Social Work (MSW) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration. Unni has also done the Meridian leadership program offered by Common Purpose.

VATSALA MAMGAIN

Director- Resource Mobilisation CRY

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.

VENKATESAM ESHWARA

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

Venkat is currently Vice President, Development at Ashoka University. His responsibilities include fundraising, providing leadership and developing & implementing strategy for the institution. Prior to this, he has held central roles in top management with organisations of diverse profiles. His core strengths lie in building, growing and managing geographically diverse operations. With an entrepreneurial and start-up experience of 20 years, Venkat has built three companies from inception to significant growth and profitability.

Venkat is an alumnus of St. Xaviers College, Mumbai and has worked as Chief Operating Officer, Prop Equity | P.E. Analytics Pvt. Ltd. before joining Ashoka University.

VISHAL CHOWLA

Director - Impact GiveIndia

Vishal has worked for the non-profit and corporate sectors for the last 29 years, having held a variety of leadership roles in Save the Children, Walmart Inc., Coca-Cola Inc. and PepsiCo. Vishal, in his last assignment, has worked with Save the Children in India as the Chief Operating Officer and also served as the Director Fundraising and External Engagement, driving change for children. He has driven revenue growth for Save the Children, almost doubling incomes on the corporate and individual giving channels over 4 years. He is passionate about the development sector and is now working on various initiatives, helping building capacity and capability for mid-size non-profits. At Save the Children, Vishal was also the leader for the Global Brand. Vishal in his corporate avatar has held senior roles at Walmart India, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, leading businesses in India and in South West Asia. He has studied management at XLRI, Jamshedpur, commerce at Delhi University and schooled in Calcutta.

VRUNDA BANSODE

Brand and Marketing Manager Sattva Consulting

Vrunda is responsible for brand and marketing management at Sattva Consulting. She led the development of Sattva’s open data portal ‘India Data Insights’ two years ago and continues to direct product development, research and report production. IDI reports and ope-eds led by Vrunda have been published in widely read publications including IDR, Economic Times, Forbes and more.

Her prior experience includes working at Robert Bosch, followed by her own venture in the education sector. She has worked on conceptualising and launching two unique incubation programmes at IIM Bangalore – one for non-profits and another for women entrepreneurs. She has published two books for children on inventiveness and entrepreneurship with Penguin Random House and continues to be associated with initiatives in this space.

AAKANKSHA GULATI

Chief Program Officer Teach for India

Aakanksha leads strategy and program design at Teach For India, which includes supporting  Fellowship recruitment and Alumni impact. Prior to her transition into the Education sector,  Aakanksha worked at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on projects spanning credit  strategy, organizational transformation, pre-merger planning and strategic planning for  various banking sector clients. Prior to BCG, she worked in New York with Keefe, Bruyette &  Woods as an Assistant Vice President and with Lehman Brothers (later Barclays Capital) as  an Analyst on the Securitization and Mortgage Trading Desk. Aakanksha was an F.C. Austin  Scholar at the Kellogg School of Management where she completed her MBA, and  graduated magna cum laude with a double Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and  Economics from Duke University. She believes that anyone who is interested in cross disciplinary and innovative approaches to problem solving ought to consider working in the  Education sector.

AMITAV VIRMANI

Founder & CEO The Education Alliance

Amitav Virmani is the Founder and CEO of The Education Alliance, a non-profit organisation that aims to help governments in India provide quality education to every child, by facilitating effective partnerships between state and non-state actors.  Prior to this Amitav was Country Director, ARK India, a UK based NGO where Amitav was responsible for launching several programs around school leadership, english literacy and quality assessments. He worked as a General Manager in the office of the CEO & MD at Ranbaxy Laboratories prior to his switch to the development sector. 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.

ANITA BALA SHARAD

Director - Marketing and Resource Mobilisation, Plan India

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.

ARNAV KAPUR

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

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

BHARATH VISWESWARIAH

Director - Investments, Omidyar Network India

Bharath is currently the Director of Investments at Omidyar Network India. He is responsible for leading the organization’s strategy development and its investments in Governance and Citizen Engagement.  His work in this space spans a broad set of fields including Urban Governance, Access to Justice, the Independent Media, and Open Data. Bharath currently partners with over a dozen organizations across these fields, supporting them in their journey to expand their impact in their operations. Prior to Omidyar, Bharath was a Director at the Antara Foundation, before which he worked at the University of Chicago as Executive Director of their research center in India. Bharath started his career as a management consultant, working with McKinsey & Co for about six years and the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) for about eight years. Bharath has an MBA from IIM Calcutta and a B.Tech from IIT Madras.

BIKKRAMA DAULET SINGH

Co-Managing Director Central Square Foundation

Bikkrama Daulet Singh is Co-Managing Director at Central Square Foundation (CSF), a non-profit organisation striving to ensure quality school education in India, with a focus on foundational learning. Singh is one of the leading expert voices in school education reform in India. His expertise in school education spans across Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, EdTech, and India’s private school sector.

Singh is an MBA from INSEAD and holds an undergraduate degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He went on to work as a management consultant with Accenture in India on a variety of projects related to change management, performance improvement, cost reduction and supply chain. In 2011, Bikkrama signed up for the Teach for India fellowship, which proved to be his stepping stone in the education space.

GAYATRI DIVECHA

CSR Head, Godrej Industries & Associate Companies

Gayatri heads Corporate Social Responsibility for Godrej Industries and Associate Companies. She drives the Group’s sustainability agenda that works towards skilling 1 million young people to help them become more employable. Gayatri has 14 years of experience working in the development sector across a range of roles and organisations including academia, the private sector and non-profits. Prior to Godrej, Gayatri was part of the Corporate Sustainability team at HSBC India where she played a key role in driving the bank’s portfolio of community investment programmes across the three strategic pillars of HSBC’s global Corporate Sustainability strategy – future skills, sustainable networks and entrepreneurship and sustainable finance. She has also worked at Dasra, and led their advisory research and business development teams. Gayatri has consulted for several multi-national corporations, leading Indian companies and Harvard University’s South Asia Institute. She holds a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the University of Westminster, London. In her free time, Gayatri enjoys painting, reading and travelling. She mentors a young college student who is a first-generation learner in her family, and also sits on the board of Bansuri Foundation, a family philanthropic initiative.

GAYATRI NAIR LOBO

Chief Operating Officer, ATE Chandra Foundation

Gayatri is Chief Operating Officer at ATE Chandra Foundation. She has a mix of close to 20 years of strategy consulting and development sector experience,having worked most recently CEO of India School LeadershipInstitute (ISLI). Before joining ISLI, Gayatri was at Dalberg Advisors and prior to that the Chief Operating Officer at Teach For India, and was part of the scale up of operations during its first six years. Gayatri has also previously worked at OC&C Strategy Consultants and Avalon consulting, working with clients across sectors. Gayatri has a Masters in Management Studies and a Bachelors in Commerce from Mumbai University.

GITANJALI GANDHIOK

Assistant VP - Development, Ashoka University

Gitanjali has a career spanning 24 years with diverse experience, across end to end operations, leadership advisory services, organisation and capability building, business integration, project management and change & organisational transformation initiatives. She has worked in start-ups and multinationals, in close proximity to businesses and their leaders, to deliver value through appropriately aligning people, processes and business objectives to organisation-wide goals. She earned her MBA from the National University of Singapore and B.A. (Hons.) in Political Science from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University. She is also a certified Life Coach and a Volunteer Mentor with The Aspire Foundation.

Prior to joining Ashoka University, she worked with Egon Zehnder, Odgers Berndtson and Microsoft. She joined Ashoka in July 2018 as Director Development to help strengthen the fundraising efforts of the university.

HARVEEN BEDI

CSR Head, InfoEdge India Ltd. Leadership Coach

Harveen Bedi heads CSR at InfoEdge, working closely with their non-profit organizations to maximize value creation and impact. He began his career at Nestle India where he worked for 7 years in the sales and marketing divisions, post which he joined Naukri.com in 2002 and headed their recruitment businesses like Naukri e-Hire, Quadrangle Search etc. He is also an Erickson & ICF- ACC Certified Leadership Coach, now inspiring & senior executives and founders. He dedicates half of his time working in his passion as a coach at www.answerwhatnext.com , where he coaches Corporate leaders stuck in their Career & Founders/Entrepreneurs wishing to develop their leadership skills to make their lives more meaningful & fulfilling.

HISHAM MUNDOL

Chief Advisor, India Environmental Defense Fund

Hisham is the Chief Advisor, India for Environmental Defense Fund, for operations in India.  He started his career in sales, marketing and consulting with Hindustan Unilever, WorldTel, Accenture & Infosys. He subsequently moved to the development sector where he led the National Condoms Programme for the Indian Government’s National AIDS Control Organisation and later set up operations in South Asia for Wikimedia Foundation, promoting projects like Wikipedia. Most recently, he led the work of Children’s Investment Fund Foundation in India (across health, nutrition, adolescence, education, girls & women’s rights and livelihoods, child protection and climate change.)

INGRID SRINATH

Director - Centre for Social Impact & Philanthropy Ashoka University

Ingrid Srinath has been a passionate advocate for human rights, social justice and civil society for the past 19 years. A graduate from 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.

JAMES ABRAHAM

Founder and Director SolarArise

James has over 30 years of experience as a management leader in various roles in Canada, South East Asia, and India. He started his career with Bell Canada and later joined BCG in Toronto in 1994 where he worked with diverse industries. In 1998, he moved to India to open and lead the Delhi office. In 2009, he took on the leadership of SunBorne Energy, a technology R&D and solar- EPC Player in India. In 2014 he co-founded SolarArise which owns and operates utility-scale solar plants in India. James earned a B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering. from the University of Waterloo, an MBA (Palmer Scholar) from Wharton, and an MA from Johns Hopkins University. He also serves on various Industry advisory bodies and councils including the India-US Track 2 on Climate Change. He is a member of the Board on L&T Water and Effluent Treatment, Vistaar Financial Services, SmartPower India, International Justice Mission; and a Trustee of the Ananta-Aspen Center. He is a fellow of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

KAPIL KAUL

Chief Executive Officer IIT Kanpur Development Foundation

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.

KARTIK DESAI

Partner - Asia KOIS

Kartik is a Partner at KOIS Caring Finance, a firm specialized in impact investing. Prior to that, he led Asha Impact as its Executive Director. Kartik has previously also worked with two impact investment funds in India – Lok Capital and Aavishkaar – was an investment banker with DSP Merrill Lynch, and consulted with the Rockefeller Foundation and the UNDP in the US and Africa. He has led several pioneering initiatives in building the social enterprise and impact financing ecosystem in India such as being on the jury of the world’s first reality TV show on impact investing, launching a social enterprise operating a cultural and co-working centre and digital polling platform for underprivileged youth, teaching seminars and online courses on impact investing, authoring multiple op-eds and policy papers, being selected as a ‘Champion of Change’ by the PMO and Niti Aayog and board member of the Impact Investors Association representing 40+ organisations. Kartik completed his education at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and SIPA at Columbia University.

MAHARSHI VAISHNAV

Chief of Staff Educate Girls

Maharshi Vaishnav is Educate Girls’ Chief of Staff. In his current role, he assists the Founder-CEO to deliver her strategic vision. Prior to Educate Girls, Maharshi was on a research fellowship with the Grameen Foundation in South-East Asia, where he evaluated mobile technology solutions for women micro-entrepreneurs. Before making a conscious switch to international development, Maharshi spent a decade in various roles across the private sector. Maharshi holds graduate degrees in Public Policy and Business.

PR GANAPATHY

Regional Director Stanford Seed, India

PR Ganapathy is the Regional Director at The Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (known as Stanford Seed) leading their operations in India, 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 tech platform connecting citizens to eligible welfare schemes. Prior to moving to the development sector in 2011, he worked with 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.

RACHANA IYER

Head - CSR IDFC FIRST Bank

Rachana Iyer leads the social impact practice at IDFC FIRST Bank. She has a multi-sectoral experience of having worked with various players in the eco-system from non-profits, social businesses, incubators and corporate citizenship.

An alumna of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, she has worked across India, East Africa and the U.S on development projects focusing on Health, Education, Gender, Agriculture and Mental Health.

At the Bank, she drives social innovation initiatives engaging stakeholders across their employee, customer and impact eco-system.

RESHMA ANAND

Chief Executive Officer Hindustan Unilever Foundation

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.

RITU JAIN

Core Team Member Kaivalya Education Foundation

Ritu is a versatile, highly adaptable professional with over 25 years of experience in leading multi-function, business development and operations leaders across start-up, medium and large organizations in India, Asia-Pacific and Europe exploring from corporate to the development sector.. She comes with experience in partner management, strategic account planning, leading cross-border teams and delivering multi-programme portfolios. For the last 7 years, she has been immensely engaged in philanthropic space as well as CSR consultancy. In her previous roles – Ritu has worked with Sri Ram Foundation as teacher and facilitator, Charity Heads Foundation as Head Corporate Giving, Teach for India as Chief Operating Officer. She has been associated with Latika Roy Foundation as a board member. She has also done India Leaders for Social Sector (ILSS) – A Leadership Program from Ashoka University in 2018. Currently, she is associated with Kaivalya Education Foundation as a Core Team Member leading the State Transformation program in Jharkhand along with building assessment as a product for education reform.

NAGHMA MULLA

Chief Executive Officer, EdelGive Foundation

Naghma Mulla serves as the President, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Board Member of EdelGive Foundation, the philanthropic initiative of Edelweiss Group – one of India’s leading diversified financial services group. Over the last nine years, Naghma has been instrumental in strategically driving the vision of social transformation by steering the holistic development of small to medium-sized grassroots NGOs spread across the span of India. Naghma plays a critical role in enabling these commitments and triggering meaningful conversations by forging valuable partnerships with diverse international and national stakeholders within the ecosystem. Today, EdelGive has also built two successful collaboratives – The Collaborators for Transforming Education (in partnership with the Government of Maharashtra) and the Coalition for Women’s Empowerment (in partnership with Ford Foundation and Chintu Gudiya Foundation) – both created and nurtured by her. Naghma is also a member of the Core Committee of the India Climate Collaborative (ICC) – a collaboration of India’s leading philanthropies committed to addressing the climate crisis in India. She began her career with Bajaj Alliance General Insurance and played an instrumental role in their foundational team. She is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and has earned a Master of Commerce (M. Com.) degree from the University of Pune.

NAMITA DALMIA

Director – Investments, Omidyar Network India

Namita is an engineer from IIT Bombay and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. She has been working at the intersection of innovations and policy discussions in education and skilling. In her most recent role as the Director of Investments at Omidyar Network India, she led impact investing in the education sector for the organization. In her previous role at Central Square Foundation, she incubated and launched several edtech initiatives and supported state/central governments on building their edtech platforms . Previous to this, she worked at a national policy think-tank focused on education and an edtech start-up in the Bay Area

SAMAR VERMA

Program Officer Ford Foundation

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

SANDHYA VENKATESWARAN

Fellow, Lancet Citizens Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System; Senior Consultant, CSEP

Sandhya has a career spanning over three decades, where she has engaged with a wide range of issues in the social sector spanning across health, nutrition, gender, natural resources, urban development, accountability, capability and others. Over the last 15 years, she has focused on policy issues, developing and leading the policy and advocacy portfolio in organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and CARE. She has worked with multiple grassroots campaigns and civil society organizations, as well as with government and international organizations. She has authored books, multiple articles and other publications on varied social sector issues. She is currently a member of the Lancet Citizens Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System and a senior consultant to a think tank where she is helping set up a body of work on human development.

SANJAY KADAVERU

Founder & President Action for India

Sanjay Kadaveru is the Founder & President of Action For India (AFI), an initiative to help social entrepreneurs in India overcome barriers to scale and achieve greater impact at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Prior to launching AFI, Sanjay managed investments at The Seven Hills Group, a family office based in the US, where he supported the deployment of $50M in capital across several sectors: energy, media, IT, infrastructure and education. He is also a co-founder of the Center for Healthcare Innovation, a US based not-for-profit thought-leadership organization focusing on the life sciences. Sanjay is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the world’s largest network of entrepreneurs, and served as a Co-Chair for TiECon East. He also served as Vice-Lead for the Social Entrepreneurship SIG at TiE Global. Earlier, Sanjay co-founded the AP Technology Leadership Council, a non-profit networking organization created to provide pro-bono business consulting services to civic and governmental causes in the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh.Sanjay is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

SHAVETA SHARMA-KUKREJA

Managing Director, Central Square Foundation

Shaveta has been part of the founding team at CSF, and co-leads CSF’s strategy, operations and strategic partnerships. She leads CSF’s work on Foundational Literacy & Numeracy across State engagement & Classroom Instruction, Grant-making, and also oversees CSF’s organizational development. She led CSF’s work on human capital and institutional structures in Education.

Her corporate background includes work at The Boston Consulting Group and Citibank, and has been a visiting faculty member in the Human Resources and Organizational Behavior disciplines at business schools. Her primary areas of interest are systems adoption at scale and leadership & organizational behavior. She is certified in the psychometric tools MBTI, FIRO-B and FIRO-Business.

Shaveta earned her BA in Economics from Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi and holds an MBA from IIM, Bangalore.

SHANTANU GHOSH

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

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.

SHYAAM SUBRAMANIAN

Former Chief Program Officer & Head of Strategy Teach for India

Shyaam is currently Vice President of True North Co. Previously, he was the Chief Program Officer and the Head of Strategy and HR at Teach For India. He is a seasoned organizational development professional with expertise in program design, operations transformation and capability building across sectors with education being the most recent. At TFI, Shyaam has managed operations, and led impact framework design and implementation. He also anchored key donor relations – especially with identified private sector organizations and with select international foundations. Shyaam is also an advisory Board member with Leadership For Equity – a delivery and Consulting organisation that helps scale innovations in India’s public education system.

SRIRAM VENKATRAMAN

Director – Partnerships The/Nudge Foundation

Sriram heads partnerships and engagements at The/Nudge Foundation where he works closely with foundations, corporates and individuals towards poverty alleviation, sustainably and at scale. Prior to leading fundraising for The/Nudge, Sriram led community engagement at The/Nudge Centre for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

An undergraduate from the BITS, Pilani, Sriram spent 8 yrs in healthcare consulting and market research before his entrepreneurial journey in 2011 led him to build the India community mobilization and individual fundraising at Amnesty International towards protection of human rights in India. In 2015, he joined The/Nudge Foundation as part of its leadership team.

SUDARSHAN SUCHI

Chief Executive Officer Save the Children

Sudarshan 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.

SUDHA SRINIVASAN

Chief Executive Officer, The /Nudge Centre for Social Innovation

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.

SUNDEEP TALWAR

Chief Marketing Officer Akshaya Patra Foundation

Sundeep Talwar is the Chief Marketing Officer of The Akshaya Patra, the World’s largest school meal program run by an NGO feeding over 1.8 million children every day in 51 locations and 13 states in India. Sundeep is a dual Post Graduate in Management from Duke University & IIM-Ahmedabad with over 26 years of work experience in the areas of marketing & communications, leading corporates especially in Telecom Sector.

Before joining Akshaya Patra, as CMO, he was serving as the National Business Head (Mobility Operations) with Aircel driving the Mobile Banking operations nationally. Prior to that, he has essayed Senior Leadership Roles with brands like Bharti Airtel, Motorola, Escotel (Idea) & Essar (Vodafone) across the country and in Africa. He has also been awarded with an international accreditation from BID Spain for developing the first anti-virus application.

TAHIRA THEKAEKARA

Former Country Director PYXERA Global

Tahira Thekaekara was the Country Director for India at PYXERA Global, where she led PYXERA Global’s work to bring together the public, private, and social sectors to find solutions to social challenges and improve the lives of communities across India. Tahira has spent nearly 15 years working in the development sector in India with developmental and environmental organizations, helping them grow and scale up their impact. Before joining PYXERA Global, Tahira spent 10 years at the World Resources Institute, helping set up WRI in India. Before joining WRI India, Tahira worked at GiveIndia, an online philanthropy platform that seeks to put individual donors in touch with transparent and accountable NGOs. Tahira has always been extremely interested in issues related to the environment and ecologically sustainable lifestyles and is also interested in issues related to child rights. Tahira has a Bachelor’s degree from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and a Master’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Pune.

TARA SINGH VACHANI

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

Tara Singh Vachani is the Executive Chairperson of Antara Senior Living and Vice Chairperson of Max India Limited. As the founder of Antara her vision was to give a new dimension to the  Senior Care space in India. Tara is also the Managing Trustee of Max India Foundation.  She currently chairs the Teach for India’s Delhi Regional Board and is a member of the Advisory  Board of Vedica Scholars Program. Tara is a 2020 member of Young Global Leaders, a part of the World Economic Forum and was  also one of the ‘40 under 40’ leaders published by Economic Times in 2018. With a major in Politics and South Asian studies at the National University of Singapore  followed by courses in Strategy Management at the London School of Economics, and  Hospitality Business Strategy and Management at Ecole hotelier de Lausanne, Switzerland;  Tara loves to learn. An enthusiastic traveler, she is deeply rooted in India by the love for her family and country.

UJWAL THAKAR

Chairman, Educate Girls 

After 28 successful years in the banking sector, in various 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.

VATSALA MAMGAIN

Director – Resource Mobilisation, CRY

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.

VENKATESAM ESHWARA

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

Venkat is currently Vice President, Development at Ashoka University. His responsibilities include fundraising, providing leadership and developing & implementing strategy for the institution. Prior to this, he has held central roles in top management with organisations of diverse profiles. His core strengths lie in building, growing and managing geographically diverse operations. With an entrepreneurial and start-up experience of 20 years, Venkat has built three companies from inception to significant growth and profitability.

Venkat is an alumnus of St. Xaviers College, Mumbai and has worked as Chief Operating Officer, Prop Equity | P.E. Analytics Pvt. Ltd. before joining Ashoka University.

VISHAL CHOWLA

Former Chief Operating Officer, Save the Children, India

Vishal has worked for the non-profit and corporate sectors for the last 29 years, having held a variety of leadership roles in Save the Children, Walmart Inc., Coca-Cola Inc. and PepsiCo. Vishal, in his last assignment, has worked with Save the Children in India as the Chief Operating Officer and also served as the Director Fundraising and External Engagement, driving change for children. He has driven revenue growth for Save the Children, almost doubling incomes on the corporate and individual giving channels over 4 years. He is passionate about the development sector and is now working on various initiatives, helping building capacity and capability for mid-size non-profits. At Save the Children, Vishal was also the leader for the Global Brand. Vishal in his corporate avatar has held senior roles at Walmart India, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, leading businesses in India and in South West Asia. He has studied management at XLRI, Jamshedpur, commerce at Delhi University and schooled in Calcutta.

ZIAA LALKAKA

Chief Executive Officer, HT Parekh Foundation

Ziaa has close to 25 years of work experience. She moved to the Development sector 5 years ago. She started her career with KPMG India, when the firm was just a year old in India, joining them for her articleship training in the Mumbai office. She worked for close to 10 years with KPMG across the Audit and Corporate Finance divisions, with a focus on Audit, Transaction Advisory & M&A Advisory for companies in the Financial Services and Oil sectors. She subsequently moved to the Corporate Banking groups of ICICI bank and then BNP Paribas India, overseeing & managing the credit requirements of mid-sized to large corporates based in Mumbai & Pune. She joined the HDFC Property Fund in 2006, to lead the Investor Relations team. This venture was the HDFC’s Group’s foray into real estate private equity, with a domestic & international fund of US$ 1.10 billion. She spent 6 years here, building and developing relationships with both domestic & international investors who were part of the real estate fund. Ziaa transitioned to the development sector in 2014, when she joined to lead the H T Parekh Foundation, started to honour the rich legacy of HDFC Limited’s Founder, Mr H T Parekh. The Foundation is the CSR implementing entity for HDFC, and provides grants to exemplary partner organisations across rural & urban India in the areas of Education, Healthcare & Livelihoods.
Ziaa is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accounts of India and a graduate from Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics, Mumbai.

VIJAY CHADDA

Chief Executive Officer Air Pollution Action Group

Vijay has over 45 years of professional experience across fields. He served in the Indian Army for twenty years, later leading some of the marquee corporates in the travel and hospitality industry. He is the former CEO of Bharti Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Bharti Enterprises, one of India’s leading business groups. His army background has inspired many events to inculcate a sense of patriotism and integrity within him. Vijay is also the Chairman of the Managing Committee at Modern School, Barakhamba Road, one of the elite schools of India. He is a part of various National Committees in the area of Education, Skill Development and CSR. A graduate from National Defence Academy, India and the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, Canada; Vijay went on to complete his M.Sc. in Defence Studies from Madras University

VANESSA D’SOUZA

Chief Executive Officer SNEHA

Vanessa D’Souza is 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 has completed her BA in Economics honors and MBA with a specialization in Marketing Management.  She also did 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 was awarded the Social Innovation and Iconic Leadership Award by World CSR Congress 2016. She was awarded the Mother Theresa Scholarship to attend a program on “Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management” at Harvard Business School in July 2017.She is married to a Surgical Oncologist and has two children. Her hobbies are cooking, reading and travel.