Advisors

Former Chairman - Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Former Member Planning Commission

Arun Maira is a thought leader and writer on transformational change and leadership. He brings a unique perspective of how the public and private sectors can work together to foster growth in India. He was Chairman of BCG India for 8 years, and spent 25 years at the Tata Group. As a member of the Planning Commission he developed strategies and policies on industrialisation and urbanisation. He also led participative scenario building for India's future in 1999 with CII and in 2005 with the World Economic Forum.

Harsh Mariwala is an Indian entrepreneur, who is the founder and Chairman of Marico, a Fortune India 500 company. Mariwala began his career in 1971 with Bombay Oil Industries which was controlled by his family. In 1990, he founded Marico, a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturer and distributor that now has operations in 25 countries across Asia and Africa. He is also the founder of Kaya Limited, which runs a chain of skin care clinics across India and the Middle East; Ascent Foundation, a peer-learning entrepreneurial platform; Marico Innovation Foundation, which works towards nurturing innovations in India; Mariwala Health Initiative, which supports mental health causes; and Sharp Ventures, which serves as his family office.

Jayakumar is currently the Global Chief Marketing Officer at Capital Group. Capital Group is home of American Funds, one of the nation’s largest actively managed mutual fund families.

Pradeep K Chintagunta is on the advisory editorial boards of Marketing Science, Quantitative Marketing and Economics and the Journal of Marketing Research. He is named one of the Chicago Booth's top professors by BusinessWeek

Founding Dean - Indian School of Business, Founder and Trustee - Ashoka University

Pramath spent 13 years with McKinsey as a partner and is also the Founding Dean of Indian School of Business (ISB). He is a Founder and Trustee of Ashoka University and heads the India operations of Albright Stonebridge Group, a US-based commercial diplomacy firm. He is the founder of 9.9 Media, and prior to that, he was the MD and CEO of the ABP Media Group. Pramath has an M.S.E and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B. Tech. from IIT Kanpur.

Rama Bijapurkar is an independent consultant. She has served as an independent director on the boards of several of India's blue chip companies like Axis Bank, Bharat Petroleum, CRISIL, Godrej, Infosys, ICICI Prudential, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd.

An IT industry veteran with over 35 years of experience, Sharad was an early influencer who envisioned the importance of digital technologies in the IT Infrastructure services space. In his current role as Chief of Staff at Microland, Sharad provides oversight and guidance to meet the company’s mission and long-term goals and is also responsible for process re-engineering as a Process Champion. Prior to joining Microland, Sharad worked with Wipro for nine years playing multiple roles in the Sales and Marketing domain. A certified Six-Sigma Green Belt, Sharad is passionate about driving digital transformation through quality initiatives. He has been an assessor for the prestigious CII “Excellence in Business Management” program that evaluates and selects the Best Managed Corporate entities of India.

With a deep passion about education for the underprivileged, Ms. Kapoor has 25 years of experience in the Non-Profit sector. She is the Chair of Financial Aid for Horace Mann School Benefit New York, board member at America India Foundation, NY Tri-State chapter and Gala co-chair for AIF and Pratham. Shikha has worked at Cadbury Schweppes, Nestle. She also acted as an adjunct faculty for Cultural Psychology at Manhattanville College New York.

Srikant M. Datar is the Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Business Administration, Faculty Chair of the Harvard Innovation Lab, HBS One Harvard Faculty Fellow, and Senior Associate Dean for University Affairs at Harvard Business School.

Board of Directors - ICICI Bank; Ex-Director - IRMA

Tushaar Shah specialized in managerial economics at IIM Ahmedabad. His doctoral work was on money and banking, subsequently foraying into the economics of dairying, oilseeds, forestry and irrigation. He taught Economics for Rural Managers to several generations of students at IRMA (Institute for Rural Management Anand), bringing the village economy to his classroom in the early 1980’s through a simulation game called Naranpur Express using live data from one of his field research projects. More recently as a Senior Fellow of the International Water Management Institute, Tushaar’s research has focused on water policy, institutions and management in India.

CEO - SRIJAN, Managing Director - SIDS

Ved is a social entrepreneur who has also been on several government policy bodies. He was a consultant and advisor to the World Bank, SDC, SIDA and DfID; was founder-chairman of Ibtada and is currently a board member of several NGOs such as SPWD and Mobile Creches. He also co-authored a book, Human Resource Strategies to Build Pro-Poor Institutions. Ved has an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and a B.Tech. from IIT Kanpur, after which he studied at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston University.

Venkataramana Annavarapu has over 30 years of experience in the IT industry working in India, Singapore and the US. He retired from his Corporate career at the end of 2015 and spent some time learning the nuances of trading in the US stock market in order that he can manage his retirement funds himself. He is a member of the Advisory Board for IIMPACT, an NGO established by alumni of IIM Ahmedabad and also an active Rotarian. Having spent a little over 20 years in the US he returned to India and now resides in Bangalore

Vidya Shah is the Chairperson and CEO of EdelGive Foundation, the philanthropic initiative of Edelweiss Group – a leading Indian diversified financial services group. In addition to being a non-executive director at Edelweiss, Vidya also serves on the boards of various prominent CSOs such as Agastya International Foundation, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka University, Mann Deshi Foundation and the Indian School of Public Policy. She also serves on the Governing Board of the Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur. She has been recognised as India’s Top 100 Women in Finance by the Association of International Wealth Management of India (AIWMI) 2019.