Faculty

Visiting Faculty, Knowledge Management System

Aakash is empowering unemployable youth to navigate the future of work & learning in India by mastering 21st century skills through self-learning. He is integrating the culture, tools and practice of self-learning in the Indian education and vocational training system and transitioning teachers as champions of 21st century skills. By doing so, institutions and teachers are enabling young people to experience purpose and autonomy and take charge of their own learning and career pathways. INDUSTRY EXPERTISE Program Officer at Ambuja Cement foundation Regional CSR Coordinator at Microsoft Middle East & Africa Country Director of the International Youth Foundation Active Member of AIESEC ALMA MATER Finalist, Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the year 2019 Ashoka Fellow Economics from St. Xavier's College, Ahmedabad

Visiting Faculty, Volunteer Management

Everyone has an equal amount of one thing. Time. 24 hours. Everyone has some dispensable time as well. Aarti believes that its only how we choose to spend it that differentiates us . Volunteering is one way. Easily the most self gratifying way as well. She is passionate about finding ways to inspire and excite people to give time for a cause- she has founded and runs Whiteboard, an initiative within iVolunteer, that brings senior level corporate professionals together as a group to provide advice and strategic guidance completely probono to NGOs in their cities. More recently, she also helped design Sushrusha ( meaning service ) a young student's volunteering initiative in schools that makes service a required component of their co curricular activities. She actively volunteers herself with the #DaanUtsav ( Joy of Giving week), India's largest giving festival. Aarti is also the founder of Governance Counts, an initiative that helps strengthen the Boards of NGOs. Her work in governance includes identifying key Board related issues and recommending good practice guidelines. She enables NGOs find appropriate Board members as part of this. Aarti has consulted with more than 150 organisations over the two decades that has been doing this. She is an alumnus of TISS and NIMHANS and a fellow of Board Source USA.

Prof. Kohli holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from Indiana University, and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. His dissertation received honorable mention in the International Doctoral Dissertation Competition. He is Professor of Marketing at California State University Fullerton, and was honored with the Business School’s Outstanding Faculty Award for 1998/1999 and Distinguished Faculty Award for 1999/2000; and again as Outstanding Faculty for 2008/2009. He also received the Best Professor Award from the University’s Associated Students, Inc. for the year 2002/2003. In 2008, he was honored as the Outstanding Professor for the School of Business. Dr. Kohli is the founder principal of I.D.ENTITY, specializing in brand and corporate identity. His research has been reported in academic journals and newspapers including European Journal of Marketing, Harvard Business Review, Ivey Business Journal, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Business Research, The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register. National Public Radio has also done a segment on his work. In 1999, he was honored by the Young Presidents Organization of Southern California for excellence in academia; and in January, 2000, he was nominated for the Pattishall Award, sponsored by the Brand Names Education Foundation, for excellence in teaching trademark related topics. He has consulted for a wide variety of companies, including Alcatel Lucent, Autodesk, Bionutrics, Canon USA, Convergys, Del Taco, KFC, Odetics, Quaker Oats, Regency Healthcare, Spherion, Taco Bell, and Verizon. Dr. Kohli has been invited as a keynote speaker to several organizations, and has been nominated to the American Marketing Association’s National Speakers Directory. He has offered several seminars in the United States, Germany, Hong Kong, and Sweden. A comedian by avocation, he won the Indiana University Comedy Competition and has opened for Dennis Miller of Saturday Night Live!     

Visiting Faculty, Knowledge Management System

Gauri teaches Knowledge Management Systems for Development Organisations at ISDM. With her background in human centered design, Gauri has spent 10 years in the development sector designing learning experiences for communities and networks. Her core focus has been to build the organisation’s capacity to effectively leverage its learnings, knowledge dissemination and research. She has actively worked in building inclusive systems and culture for internal communication, talent development, and organisational learning. INDUSTRY EXPERTISE Human Centered Design | Organisation Culture | Knowledge Management for Social Purpose Organisations ALMA MATER Srishti Institute of Art Design And Technology

Kanu Priya Sekhri is a management professional and entrepreneur, who practices as a learning facilitator and mindset coach. She curates and delivers participant centric learning programs for organisations for a variety of learning outcomes including team building, induction programs, first time management, impactful communication, and leadership presence. She has engaged with and influenced the lives of more that 10,000 people through programs run by her organization, In-Fluent Learning. She relishes helping people change their mindset and leading them from unconscious incompetence to self-mastery. INDUSTRY EXPERTISE Founder and freelance learning facilitator at In-Fluent Learning Has worked at different positions in School of Inspired Learning, American India Foundation, ISDM and Tech Mahindra ALMA MATER Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management, IIM, Bangalore Bachelor of Commerce, Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce

Founder & CEO of Desai & Associates

Kartik Desai, Founder & CEO of Desai & Associates, is considered a pioneer of social finance in India, with leadership roles at four pioneering impact investing institutions, advising well-reputed funders, donors, corporates, policymakers and academics and demonstrating a track record of successful impact investments and exits in the last 15 years. He has almost two decades of experience in investment banking, private equity, venture capital, social entrepreneurship, development finance and economic policy. He is also a thought leader, active writer, Professor of Social Finance at Ashoka University and Adjunct Faculty at Ambedkar University, ISDM and Naropa Fellowship. Kartik was most recently Partner at KOIS, a global innovative finance firm with asset management and advisory businesses focused on impact investment and blended finance across (i) education, skilling and employment, (ii) healthcare and (ii) climate and sustainability, leading the firm’s advisory business across Asia. He founded and led Asha Impact for 7 years, one of India’s pre- eminent multi-family offices and think tanks focused on impact investment, and previously was a Vice President at Lok Capital and Aavishkaar, two pioneering funds that helped establish the asset class in India. Kartik started his career in the United States as consultant with organisations like BTS and the Rockefeller Foundation, worked briefly in Africa with the UNDP and moved to India in 2005 to join Merrill Lynch in its investment banking and then private equity divisions, before moving full-time into social finance in 2008. Kartik has served on the boards of several high growth impact enterprises over his career, as a three-time elected Board Member of the Impact Investors Council, as founder and mentor to NGOs in the urban inclusion, digital media and mental health space and an active angel investor in social enterprises working in remote or underserved parts of India. He has been selected for Government of India initiatives such as the PM’s Champions of Change and Parliamentarians and Innovators for India and is an active speaker and contributor to professional seminars, education institutions and government consultations on development finance. He graduated in 2002 with a BSc Economics (Finance and Management) from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and in 2004 with Masters in International Affairs (International Finance & Business) from SIPA, Columbia University.

Visiting Faculty, Fundraising

Maharshi Vaishnav is Educate Girls’ Chief Operating Officer. He leads a team of over 2,200 passionate changemakers across over 18,000 villages of India, who are committed to identifying and enrolling the most marginalized out-of-school girls, retaining them in schools, and ensuring that they learn well. In his previous role as head of fundraising at Educate Girls, he managed a team that successfully raised over $60M in 5 years. 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.

Visiting Faculty, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

With the acumen gained from two careers, the first in the Indian Revenue Service and the second at HSBC in India and Hong Kong, Malini Thadani is an Independent Director on corporate and NGO Boards and advise and guide them on matters relating to Governance, Investor Relations and in the design and integration of effective Sustainability, ESG and Impact Investing into their strategic vision, communications and brand positioning.    PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE Senior Advisor, FTI Consulting Independent Director, Mirae Asset Investment Managers Independent Director, Saksoft Trustee and Chairperson, Advisory Council. Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) Head of Corporate Sustainability, Asia Pacific Region, HSBC Registrar Academic Affairs, National Institute of Fashion Technology Indian Revenue Service (IRS)   ALMA MATER      Programme in Social Entrepreneurship, INSEAD Masters equivalent from Ecole National D’Administration,(ENA), France  Masters in Public Administration, Ohio University Masters in History, University of Delhi

Dr. Manisha Priyam is an academic and researcher and she works on issues of development and politics in India. She has a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), in International Development, where she examines the politics of education policy reforms in a comparative perspective. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Policy, National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), the advisory body for the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MoHARD), Government of India. Priyam has over two decades of experience of working with donors, policy makers, administrators and stakeholders in policy formulation, implementation, and evaluations. Her area of research specializations and interest are: higher education policy reforms, primary education policy reforms, decentralization, and urban social policy reforms. She writes for leading national newspapers and weeklies in Hindi and English.  Among her publications are The Contested Policies of Education Reforms in India: Aligning Opportunities with Interests, Oxford University Press 2015, and “From Clients to Citizens: Learning from Brazil Provides and Opportunity to Delhi” in N. Jayaram edited, Social Dynamics of the Urban, Springer, 2017.

Meenu is an alumnus of Delhi School of Economics and IIM Bangalore and has over 30 years of experience with leading organizations in the corporate and social sectors.    She is co-founder and Board member of two not-for-profit organizations - Pravah and ComMutiny the Youth Collective. She is also part of the founding team of vartaLeap, a multi-sectoral coalition incubated by ComMutiny the Youth Collective to support the mission of Every Youth a Jagrik, and Every Space Nurturing Jagriks.     She is a Trustee of Spanda – a performing arts Trust set up by Ms Leela Samson. In 2018 she co-founded Indicult, a social enterprise which works with artisans and slow fashion designers to promote Indian crafts and hand made.    As CEO of Pravah (a youth development NGO) from 2005 - 2010, she led the strategy development process for the organization and its various programs, managed and nurtured a team of competent professionals, and provided oversight to all of Pravah’s programmes.  She currently works part time with Pravah, supporting their fundraising and HR functions, mentoring social entrepreneurs who are part of their Changelooms programme, and several members of the Pravah senior leadership team. She has been actively involved with the design and implementation of innovative programs and curricula for organizations, adolescents, youth, teachers and youth facilitators. These include programmes that nurture leadership and build agency of young people, employability enhancing abilities beyond skills and HR and organisation development interventions.    She is co-author of ‘Ocean In A Drop – Inside Out Youth Leadership’ (Sage 2013). Other co-authors are Arjun Shekhar, Kamini Prakash and Ashraf Patel.    As an independent consultant, she has undertaken assignments with national and international organisations including Ashoka Innovators for the Public, Change Alliance, CRY Child Rights and You, ComMutiny the Youth Collective, CII, Fresh Water Action Network, South Asia, Global Health Strategies Institute, IPPF, Plan International, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and Vyaktitva.  

Nishant, who has a Ph.D in Economics from the University of British Columbia, is a development economist with a strong interest in the fields of political economy, governance and the economics of education. He currently researches the impact of urbanisation on education, the market for private schools and the role of economic changes in shaping politics. His past work includes a UNU–WIDER sponsored project on between-group inequalities in India.  He is a Fellow and Head - Projects at the India Development Foundation.

Pradeep is a human rights activist-researcher associated with many rights-based NGOs and campaigns in India. He has more than 15 years of experience of working in Government, corporate and the non-governmental sector. For the last six years, he has focused on children’s issues, primarily child labour and its relation to education, child protection, child participation and health. Over the years, he has also handled projects on issues of community participation, water rights, free trade agreements and fair trade.   INDUSTRY EXPERTISE   ALMA MATER               School of African and Asian Studies, London, United Kingdom The American College, Madurai, India

Political Theory

Professor, Political Theory A noted Indian political theorist, he was a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New  Delhi, and the University of Delhi, New Delhi. He is also an Honorary Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford. He has also worked on politics and ethics of the Indian Constitution. INDUSTRY EXPERTISE Director, Institute of Indian Thought at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi ALMA MATER St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, New Delhi Balliol College, Oxford

Professor, Society and SPOs

Mr. Rajesh Tandon is an internationally acclaimed leader and practitioner of participatory research and development. Electronics engineer from IIT (Kanpur), MBA from IIM (Calcutta) and PhD in Management from Case Western Reserve University (USA), Mr Tandon left his teaching job at IIM (Calcutta) to support and champion the cause of building organizations and capacities of the marginalized through their knowledge, learning and empowerment, contributing to the emergence of several local, national and international groups and initiatives to promote authentic and participatory development of societies. He has served on numerous expert committees of Government of India, UGC, United Nations, Commonwealth and World Bank. In 2015, the Indian Adult Education Association (IAEA) awarded Mr Tandon the Nehru Literacy Award. For his distinguished work on gender issues, the Government of India honoured him with the prestigious award in Social Justice in March 2007. The University of Victoria, Canada, awarded Mr Tandon the degree of Doctor of Law (Honoris Causa) in June 2008. He is the first Indian to be inducted to the International Adult and Continuing Education (IACE) Hall of Fame (class of 2011). He is also the first Indian scholar to be inducted in Academy of Scholarship in 2019. Mr Tandon has authored more than 100 articles, a dozen books and numerous training manuals on democratic governance, civic engagement, civil society, governance and management of NGOs, participatory research and people-centred development. He has served in an advisory capacity on numerous expert groups of several ministries of central and state governments and the Planning Commission in India. He also serves on the boards of many national and international non-profit organisations. INDUSTRY EXPERTISE Founded Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), a global participatory research and training centre, and continues to be its President since 1982. Co-Chair of the prestigious UNESCO Chair on Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, since 2012. Chairperson, Committee constituted by the UGC to carry out appraisal of the scheme ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’. Chairperson, Forum for Indian Development Corporation. Founder & Chairperson of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Founder-Chairperson of FIM-Forum for Democratic Governance. Founder-Chairperson VANI (Voluntary Action Network India).

Professor, Market Failures

She is currently a Non- resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution. Dr. Ravi was the former Director of Research at Brookings India. The focus of her scholarship has been Development Economics with specific contributions in health, financial inclusion, gender and urbanization. Her research is frequently cited by leading international media outlets as well as most national and regional newspapers within India. During the COVID pandemic, Dr. Ravi has been popularly termed as India's "explainer-in-chief" by several Indian and global media houses due to her daily statistical analysis which are circulated widely.    Industry Experience   1) Senior Fellow, Governance Studies Program, Brookings Institution, Washington D.C. 2) Visiting Professor of Economics at BITSoM, ISB and JNU 3) Member, Economic Advisory Council to the PM of India 4) Publishes extensively in international peer-reviewed academic journals and writes regular opinion pieces in major newspapers. 

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.

Soma is a development studies researcher, with a specialisation in impact evaluation methodologies. Her work is based on empirical research on linkages between gender, education and empowerment. Before joining IDF, she was a journalist with a focus on issues of development. She held senior editorial positions in Open, The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, Outlook andThe Times of India. She is an alumnus of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University

Sourodip is the Director of Vayati Foundation, a non-profit that works with the weaver communities of Yemmiganur, Andhra Pradesh. He is also the co-founder of Karghewale, an incubator of artisan-promoted micro-enterprises organised as a social enterprise. Until recently, he served as the Executive Director of The Handloom School, a unique educational institution for the young handloom artisans of India promoted by WomenWeave, a charitable trust based in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh, conceived from the organisation's belief that young weavers were capable of building sustainable livelihoods if given the requisite training and support to engage in trade negotiations directly. Sourodip holds a degree in Rural Management from Institute of Rural Management Anand, and has over 7 years' of experience across corporate and non-profit sectors.  

Deputy Director – Research and Capacity Building at Praxis India.

Founder-Director, Viridus Social Impact Solutions

Sujatha teaches Perspectives on Organisations and has been guiding the academic team on the Bricolage.    Sujatha Rao is Founder-Director at Viridus Social Impact Solutions.   Sujatha works in the areas of education, technology and organisation development. Over the last two decades, her interest and research have been in studying how social purpose organisations can be purposefully designed in ways that empowers human agency and enhances organisational impact. She has worked in and consulted widely in the areas of organisational development, leadership, executive development and in vocational and school education across private, not-for-profit and public sectors both in India and overseas.  Sujatha has taught at the University of Western Sydney, University of Sydney, Azim Premji University and is currently a member of the Academic Working Group at the Indian School of Development Management. She holds a Postgraduate Degree in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from XLRI Jamshedpur, and a PhD in Organisation Studies.

Suparna Diwakar  teaches Perspectives on Scale at ISDM .   She is a Co-founder of ISDM and held the position of Dean Research and Academics.   Suparna has worked extensively in the development sector for more than 30 years, starting her career with MYRADA. She led and managed multiple projects at Adamya Chetana, Centre for Leadership and Management in Public Services, the Karnataka Department of Public Instruction and the Indian Institute of Science.  Suparna also has experience in curriculum development, teaching, design, project development and implementation, corporate trainings and numerous collaborative projects with TISS, The Teacher Foundation, ABB, Azim Premji Foundation and UNICEF. She has also published papers on academic leadership, management and governance.  Suparna has a PGDHRM from Symbiosis, an M.A. in Economics from Gokhale Institute and a B.Sc. from Bangalore University.

Swapnil Agarwal co-Founded Dhwani Rural Information Systems with a vision to reduce technological barriers for social impact organsiations struggling to leverage ICT for good. His tenure at IRMA (Institute of Rural Management, Anand) as a Post-Graduate student made him aware of the challenges faced by the grassroot organisations centered around technology and that’s what gave him an idea to come up with an enterprise that is technologically strong and mindful to the emerging tech needs of the social sector.   Before devoting his full time at Dhwani, Swapnil had worked in the Middle East  on several healthcare projects including low-cost primary health clinics for the blue-collar workers. Though a chemical engineer by profession, Swapnil associates himself more as a development professional.

Professor, Data Interpretation and Visualization

  Professor, Data Interpretation and Visualization Vishnu Padmanabhan is the Policy and Analytical Communication Lead at the Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States, a new non-profit dedicated to helping state governments improve development outcomes. Before this, he was Assistant Editor (Data) at Mint, where he helped run Plain Facts, India's only data journalism page, and wrote data-based pieces covering economics, policy and politics. He has also worked at J-PAL, TechnoServe and PRS Legislative Research. INDUSTRY EXPERTISE Writing, data analysis, data visualization ALMA MATER London School of Economics and University College London

President and Chief Executive - Centre for Policy Research

Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research. In 2008, she founded the Accountability Initiative at CPR, which is credited with pioneering one of India’s largest expenditure tracking surveys for elementary education. Yamini’s work sits at the intersection of research and policy practice. Her research interests span the fields of public finance, social policy, state capacity, federalism, governance and the study of contemporary politics in India. She has published widely in academic publications and the popular press and writes regularly on current affairs and policy matters in mainstream Indian newspapers. Yamini serves on a number of government and international policy committees as well as boards of non-profits and think tanks. Her recent policy commitments include: Commissioner and Chair governance working group, Lancet Commission on Reimagining India's Health System; Member State Advisory Council, Government of Punjab, Member Technical Advisory Group, National Data and Analytics Platform, Niti Aayog. Yamini is an alumna of the London School of Economics, St. Edmunds College, Cambridge University and St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.  

Abhay Shukla is a Public health physician, with a postgraduate degree in Community Medicine from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.  Since 1995 he has been working on health issues in Maharashtra, in collaboration with people’s movements and grassroots NGOs. He is presently Coordinator of SATHI-CEHAT, is a member of the National Rural Health Mission Advisory Group for Community Action and is one of the national organisers of People’s Health Movement – India. He has co-edited / co-authored the books ‘Review of Health care in India’, ‘Report on Health inequities in Maharashtra’, ‘Health system in India – crisis and alternatives’ and ‘The Rights Approach to Health and Health care’

Head of Corporate Sustainability, HSBC India

Chief Executive Officer at Oxfam India.

Former Chief Executive Officer at Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI).

Magsaysay Awardee; Founder Goonj and Gram Swabhimaan

Executive Director at Plan India.

Apoorva Oza is the Chief Executive Officer of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP, India). He is a mechanical engineer with a diploma in rural management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He has pursued a course on “Strategies for Change: Managing NGOs” from Cranford University, United Kingdom, and a three-month course from Cornell University, USA. Apoorva started his career as a Deputy Manager (Projects and Engineering) with Gujarat Dairy Development Corporation. He joined AKRSP (India) as a Field Team Leader in 1988 and in 1994, was the Head of Programmes. He was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AKRSP (India) in 2001. Besides his work with AKRSPI, he is actively involved in founding and supporting NGOs and NGO networks as well as influencing government policy.

Writer, New Delhi

Arun Maira is a thought leader and writer on subjects of transformational change and leadership. He has held leadership positions in both the private and public sectors, bringing a perspective on how the two can work together to foster growth in India.    He served as Chairman of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) India for eight years, and spent 25 years in the Tata Group, serving on the Board of Tata Motors.  As member of the Planning Commission from 2009-2014, he developed strategies, policies, and programmes on issues relating to industrialisation and urbanisation. He has also led participative scenario building for the future of India in 1999 with the Confederation of Indian Industry and in 2005 with the World Economic Forum. He is the author of many books including Redesigning the Aeroplane While Flying: Reforming Institutions, Transforming Capitalism: Improving the World for Everyone, Discordant Democrats: Five Steps to Consensus, Remaking India: One Country, One Destiny, and Shaping the Future: Aspirational Leadership in India and Beyond.

Prof Sircar is the Director at the School of Development - Azim Premji University (APU), Bangalore. He has more than 30 years of experience in the corporate sector, development sector, teaching and training.  For more than 15 years he was involved in programme planning and execution, monitoring and evaluation, research and policy advocacy in the domains of local governance, land rights, and livelihoods.  At APU, Prof Sircar delivers popular courses on Gender in Livelihoods, Political Economy of Land, Understanding Development and Change, Imagining Development: From vision to action, for postgraduate students, as well as in service professionals.  Prof Sircar has a PhD from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in Kolkata, and an M.Sc. in Physics from IIT Kharagpur.

Balakrishnan S, is the CEO of Vrutti. Having more than 19+ years of experiences in the livelihood transformation. He has been part of the journey from the start when Vrutti started working with its 1st Farmer to today when it provides services to 100,000+ farmers growing with the organisation and managing multiple roles and responsibilities. His experience spans consulting , research, capacity building and implementing development initiatives. He has been instrumental in co- creating Vrutti’s main impact model 3 Fold. He was also the CEO of the Sex Workers Cooperative providing Financial Services to Marginalised women   He recently completed a course on Strategic Non-profit management by HBS-Ahsoka University and Dasara; Also trained internationally on producer companies, and has exposure to different models of cooperatives in other countries.

Chakshu Roy heads the outreach team and leads the legislator and citizen engagement initiatives at PRS Legislative Research in India, an initiative that started at CPR. PRS is a unique initiative that provides non-partisan analysis to all Members of Parliament in India.  He has conceptualised and developed India’s only online database of all state laws and has conducted capacity-building workshops for over 1000 journalists on tracking the work of legislators. Before joining PRS, Roy worked as a lawyer who specialised in real estate law and commercial contracts. He has earlier worked in corporate law with the Chamber of Law, New Delhi. He was selected as an INK Fellow in 2010 and holds Bachelor’s degrees in Commerce and Law from Delhi University.

Founder- Janvikas and Centre for Social Justice, Ahmedabad.

Director - Centre for Equity Studies

Harsh Mander is a human rights and peace worker, writer, columnist, researcher and teacher. He is Special Commissioner to the Supreme Court of India in the Right to Food case, and works with survivors of mass violence, hunger, the homeless and street children. Harsh formerly worked in the IAS in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for almost two decades. He writes and speaks regularly on issues of social justice and received the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award for peace work, the M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award 2002 and the Chisthi Harmony Award 2012.

Heera Singh has more than 20 years of professional work experience of working with reputed national and international organisations both for nonprofit and for-profit sectors such as the Ford Foundation, European Commission, USAID funded education project Reach India and GE Capital.   She is currently working as the Grants Manager at Ford Foundation over the past 11 years during which she has collaborated and facilitated various projects across India. She has an MBA in Finance and is passionate about the idea of Grants as an enabling and empowering tool for Social Purpose Organisations.

Ingrid Srinath has been a passionate advocate for human rights, social justice and civil society in India and around the world for the past 20 years. Prior to that she spent 12 years in advertising and market research with Lowe and Grey Worldwide. At CRY (Child Rights and You), Ingrid helped build brand and fund-raising systems, led the national coalition to make education a fundamental right, enhanced the organisation’s global reach and guided its transition from a relief-oriented charity towards rights-based advocacy and movement-building She served as Executive Director of CHILDLINE India Foundation, India’s emergency helpline for children in distress from 2013-14 and was subsequently CEO of Hivos India Advisory Services. Ingrid joined the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka University as its Founder Director in 2016. The Centre, the first of its kind in India, aims to strengthen the ecosystem for philanthropy and social impact in India through cutting edge research, high level capacity building and convening, and engagement with students at Ashoka and beyond. Ingrid is a Senior Synergos Fellow, has served on the advisory boards of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),

Author - Doughnut Economics; Senior Research Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute,

Co-founder at Mantra4Change, Bangalore

Chairman Centre for Civil Society; Founder Director  Indian School of Public Policy 

Country Director at the American India Foundation (AIF), New Delhi.

CEO at Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) India..

CEO , EdelGive Foundation

Naghma Mulla is the CEO at EdelGive Foundation. She also serves as a Director on the Board of the Foundation. Over the last eight years, Naghma has been instrumental in driving the vision of the foundation towards building growth and scale for the organisations the foundation supports. Pledging nearly 4 billion INR as commitments towards the growth and scale of our partner organisations, EdelGive has supported over 150 NGOs since its inception.  She works on forging valuable partnerships with diverse international and Indian stakeholders within the development ecosystem. In line with this, she has created and/or nurtured six collaboratives with EdelGive playing a leading role in imperative areas such as Education, Women Empowerment, Capacity-Building, Climate Change, Migration and Ecosystem-Building.    She began her career with Bajaj Allianz General Insurance and played a critical 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.  

Nivedita Narain is Programme Director at PRADAN and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Development Practice at Ambedkar University Delhi. She is currently engaged in collaborative efforts to introduce Development Practice as a new profession in India. The main goal of this initiative is to strengthen the social sector through research, and the education and training of practitioners.    She is on the board of non-profits and scholar programmes, and is a founder member of the Institute for Group Facilitators.    Nivedita studied at Cornell University, IRMA and IIT Delhi.

DIRECTOR AND CEO, AMBUJA CEMENT FOUNDATION

Chief Executive Officer at Grameen Foundation India.

Prashant Dhawan is the Co-founder of the Biomimicry India. He holds a degree in Master of Science in Biomimicry from the Arizona State University, U.S.A and Biomimicry Professional Certification from Biomimicry 3.8, USA. He also holds a degree in Architecture from SPA Delhi, and an MBA from ISB Hyderabad. Prashant prefers to call himself an amateur researcher of issues related to sustainable happiness.

Founder and CEO of Samhita Social Ventures

Priya is the Founder and CEO of Samhita Social Ventures, a social sector consulting firm that collaborates with companies, government, and social organizations to strategize and implement effective social impact initiatives and create a ‘better normal’ for India's most vulnerable communities and environments. Previously, Priya co-founded The Spark Group, an education incubator that delivered affordable education to low-income communities in India. She has worked with the International Finance Corporation, the Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and at Arthur Andersen. Priya has a master’s degree in economics from Yale University, a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a master’s degree (and a Gold Medal) in Commerce from Mumbai University. She also holds an Executive Education degree from Harvard Business School. In 2020-21, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, Priya and Samhita led the front on livelihoods revival and healthcare response with two multi-stakeholder Alliances - REVIVE and India Protectors Alliance (IPA). REVIVE, supported by USAID, MSDF, Omidyar Network India, British High Commission, New Delhi, and UNDP, is a blended finance facility leveraging corporate and philanthropic funding to provide accessible and affordable capital in the form of returnable grants to 1,00,000 informal workers and at-risk nano and micro enterprises, with a focus on women and youth.

Head Programme and Executive Committee member at ATE Chandra Foundation, Mumbai.

Assistant Vice President, Haqdarshak

Retired from the Indian Administrative Services.

Co-founder at Manzil, Delhi.

Ravishankar  is the Founder  and Story Coach at Story Rules, an organisation that helps organisations communicate their stories more effectively and impactfully. He is a storytelling coach and consultant and  enjoys enabling senior leaders  to enhance their work outcomes by training them in effective business storytelling. Over the past 6 years , he has helped organisations craft their stories for high-stakes presentation events (such as for fund-raising or for crucial B2B sales pitches). Ravishankar has an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad and is a Chartered Accountant.

Head, Hindustan Unilever Foundation.

Former CEO of Make A Difference.

Royston joined Grameen Capital in 2007 as CEO, to launch the organization, providing Microfinance Institutions and Social Enterprises wider access to the capital markets. Grameen Capital is part of the global Grameen family of companies, the flagship of which is the Nobel Prize-winning Grameen Bank founded by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.   He recently launched Grameen Impact India a unique social debt vehicle to realise the dream of a “Capital-with-a-Conscience” ecosystem which over time hopes to include a Social Venture Fund and a Social Stock Exchange.  A career banker, Royston spent over a decade in Citibank in various assignments across Consumer and Corporate Bank and also set up HSBC’s SME Finance Business and their global Microfinance Business. In addition to being the former Chair of Sa-Dhan, whose members have over 30 million women micro-entrepreneurs, he serves on many boards and advisory bodies, including Grameen Foundation India, FICCI, CII, Impact Investors Council, etc.  He has been invited to address various programs in India and globally, to promote impact investment and blended finance as a sustainable tool to eradicate poverty, and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Royston has also been invited to write the introductory chapter for the OECD report on Financing for Development to be released at the UN General Assembly in September 2018. The London-based Finance Monthly publication named Royston in their 2013 Global CEO Award Winners list as among the Top 4 CEOs in Asia, and Top 2 in India.

CEO and Director of Lighthouse Communities Foundation (erstwhile Pune City Connect)

Chancellor at Ashoka University.

Retired from the Indian Administrative Services.

Principal with Dhruva Advisors LLP

Founder Director at India Development Foundation.

Srikanth is the Chief Executive Officer of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. Janaagraha is a Bengaluru based non-profit working with the mission of transforming quality of life in India’s cities and towns. Janaagraha works with citizens to catalyse active citizenship in city neighbourhoods and with governments to institute reforms to city governance.  Srikanth’s focus area in the urban sector has been “city-systems” reforms spanning Janaagraha’s flagship report the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) and municipal finance reforms. Srikanth has been an Associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for fourteen years and prior to joining Janaagraha worked in banking and audit.

Co-Founder and CEO at Sattva

Trustee, Ottapalam Welfare Trust (OWT)

T.R. Raghunandan is an advisor to Accountability Initiative and ISDM's consultant on decentralisation, anti-corruption and heritage conservation. Formerly in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), he was Joint Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Panchayati Raj and was Secretary Rural Development and Panchayat Raj in Karnataka.  Currently he is an advisor to Login Asia. More recently, he was a consultant with the UNDP in Timor Leste and to the World Bank on centrally sponsored scheme reforms. He also co-founded the non-profit Avantika Foundation, working on decentralised public governance and heritage preservation.  Raghunandan has a B.Sc. in Zoology and a law degree from Delhi University.

Founder CEO at Indus Action,

Publisher, writer and co-founder of Kali for Women, New Delhi

V. “Paddy” Padmanabhan is a Professor of Marketing and the Unilever Chaired Professor of Marketing at the INSEAD Asia campus. He is the Academic Director of the Emerging Markets Institute. Prior to joining INSEAD, Professor Padmanabhan was the John K. and Ellen A. Wallace Distinguished Professor of Marketing at the Olin School of Business, Washington University (1998-2002), and an Associate Professor of Marketing and the Fletcher Jones Faculty Fellow at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University (1990-1998). He has served as a visiting professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and INSEAD (Europe campus).

Vijay Mahajan is CEO of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies. He founded PRADAN in 1982 and the BASIX Social Enterprise Group in 1996. Vijay has co-authored the book The Forgotten Sector and has written over 60 articles.  He is also the chair of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a global microfinance forum. He is an alumnus of IIM-A and IIT-Delhi, and a mid-career fellow at Princeton University, USA.

Vimala Ramachandran Director, ERU Consultants Private Limited, New Delhi, has been working on elementary education, girls’ education, women’s empowerment and the intersection between health, nutrition, education and child care practices in children. She was involved in the conceptualisation of Mahila Samakhya (Education for Women’s Equality) and served as the first National Project Director from 1988-93 in MHRD, GOI.  She established Educational Resource Unit (now known as ERU Consultants Private Limited) in 1998 as a network of researchers and practitioners working on education. From 2011 to mid-2015 she was a National Fellow and Professor of Teacher Management and Development in NUEPA. She has published several book and articles drawing form her work pre-primary, elementary and secondary education focusing on gender and equity issues, teacher status and motivation and systemic barriers to realising the equity goals of national policies and programmes  around for elementary and adult education and most recently have been engaged in researching educational needs of out of school youth – especially girls. She is on the governing board of three NGOs working in the field of education, training and women’s empowerment – ANANDI Gujarat, ETASHA SOCIETY New Delhi and INDIA EDUCATION COLLECTIVE, Karnataka and member of the Research Council of Azim Premji University, Bangalore.

Founder Directors- Loknaad.

Trustee, We the People

Vinita has 22 years of experience in the development sector, working extensively on livelihoods, citizens rights and civic education. She was involved in setting up International Resources for Fairer Trade, Satark Nagrik Sangathan and National Homeworkers Group. Currently, she is transforming civics education in India as Managing Trustee with We, The People. Vinita has a Bachelors in Economics, and two Masters - one in Management from SP Jain Institute, Mumbai and the other in Social Policy from the London School of Economics.

Over the last 20 years, Kamini has worked with a number of social purpose organizations, including Care India, Hope Project, Pravah and WSSCC. Social inclusion and non-discrimination have been recurring themes in her work. As Executive Director of the Hope Project, Kamini learnt first-hand the challenges of organisation building, and also gained an in-depth view of the myriad ways in which social exclusion impacts the lives of the poor. Her tenure at Pravah helped her build expertise in designing and implementing youth development programs, as well as leading research and impact evaluations of youth programs. Kamini has a Masters in Social Policy and Planning in Developing Countries from the London School of Economics. She is co-author of “The Ocean in a Drop: Inside – Out Youth Leadership” (SAGE Publications).

Maroof Khan began his career as an Assistant Store Manager in New Zealand after pursuing B.com. from M.J.P. Rohilkhand University. He returned to India after 2 years with a vision to make Indian societies as ‘Just and Equitable’ as he has seen during his time abroad. He joined Department of Social Work, Jamia Millia Islamia to pursue Masters in Social Work and went on to work with PRADAN to live up to his dream of working at the grassroots with some of the most vulnerable Scheduled Tribes of Jharkhand. Managing flagship projects like NRLM and CFT-MGNREGA and simultaneously coordinating several other thematic projects, Maroof has developed proficiency in Project Management and identified Women Collectives and Governance & Citizenship as his areas of interest. At ISDM, Maroof is the Programme Associate for PGP DL.

Naghma has approximately 20 years of experience of working and consulting with Social Purpose Organisations and teaching at reputed institutions.  Her field experience has strengthened her teaching both graduate and post graduate students in Delhi School of Social Work, School of Planning & Architecture, Ambedkar University and University of Pittsburgh. Her forte is designing and facilitating learning experiences. Through her work with Pravah, she has mentored many young people and youth led organisations across the nations. Currently, she is part of the founding team and board of Rubaroo, Hyderabad and Trustee of Had Anhad, Indore. Both organisations working with adolescents and young people to empower them to be active citizens. Naghma is pursuing her PhD from Ambedkar University, Delhi and holds degrees in Clinical Psychology and Applied Development Psychology.   

Counselor

Satjyot is a trained rehabilitation psychologist with an M. Sc in Psychology and PG Diploma in Rehabilitation Psychology with 11+ years of experience. She is a trained and certified expert in modalities like psychotherapy, hypnosis and NLP. Satyjot specializes in addiction problems, marriage and relationship counselling and started her individual practice at "The Mind Vriksha". She is also associated with Felix Hospital in Noida as a consultant, and an online portal providing online counselling support.