Raj Gilda

Raj Gilda is a banker-turned-social entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder of Lend A Hand India, an NGO focused on providing vocational education in secondary schools in India. Raj's journey in the world of skilling began as a son of a small kirana (grocery) store owner as an ‘intern’ to his father at the age of 9, learning invaluable skills–right from sweeping the floor and managing cash to handling customers. The same trend continued with Raj selling life insurance policies to partly pay for his studies. Raj has been instrumental in launching an innovative internship program for higher secondary government school students, placing them with small and micro-enterprises across 4 states covering 10,000+ students. He has worked across Asia, Europe and North America in the fields of education, banking, insurance, and IT. Prior to leaving the corporate sector in 2011 to focus full-time on Lend A Hand India, he spent 10 years in New York working with Citibank and Deloitte Consulting. Raj was appointed by the Government of India as a General Body Member of the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) from 2014-17.