Team

Administration Executive

Afsar started his first job in 2009 with a BPO for inbound and outbound sales processes. He then worked with Wyra Knowledge Solutions as a Customer Care Executive and education counselor, also handling a team for education processes. Afsar has a B.Com. from Delhi University.

Director, Research and Body of Knowledge - ISDM

Dr. Aruna Pandey  teaches  Research Methods, Overview on Social Purpose Organisations, Development and Environment  at ISDM Aruna comes with deep engagement in domains of Natural Resource Governance, Institution Building and Sustainable Livelihoods. In her 14 years of experiencing and co-creating social change with communities, Aruna has worked with institutions like BRLF, an autonomous society of Ministry of Rural Development - Government of India, TISS (Mumbai), SOAS - University of London, IIM - Ahmedabad, ISAP (New Delhi).  Her domain of expertise and interest are environmental governance, social research, education, innovation and Institution Building. She has received the Young Analyst Award by EU and DPG, the prestigious M. K. Tata Prize and the NTPC gold medal for her Masters dissertation and the Felix Scholarship Trust award for her PhD at SOAS on ‘Solidarity Economy: Negotiating claims, solidarity and dissent in India’, amongst others. Aruna also is a board member of Swechha - We for Change Foundation. At ISDM, Aruna leads the Knowledge and Research Centre. As faculty for ISDM’s post-graduate programme in Development Leadership, Aruna also co-leads and supports learning modules on Environment and Development, Systems Design for Social Interventions and Radical Transformation Leadership amongst many others.

Director, People Management.

Deeksha has over 20 years of experience of which significant time was spent with Sapient, where she held multiple senior management roles in the Human Resources (HR) domain ranging from talent acquisition and development and workforce planning and deployment. Her journey in the social sector started back in 2012 in Kenya with fundraising for various causes. On moving back to India, she formalised her transition to the social sector by first undertaking the ‘India Leaders for Social Sector’ - ILSS program. Deeksha holds a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A) from University Of Madras and a Bachelor Of Engineering (BE) from Thapar Institute.

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).

Chief Digital Officer

Kanwaljeet joined the ISDM family earlier this year to help realise the vision of a Digitally relevant and innovative ISDM 2.0 that is ready to embrace technology in all its aspects. Kanwaljeet is a professional with over twenty years of experience in technology and has worked for organisations like Capgemini, TCS, and Fidelity with significant onsite experience in USA and Europe. Over the last seven years, Kanwaljeet has worked with various start-ups, managed digital transformation projects, and also launched an e-commerce venture. He has a strong interest in contemporary technologies, has researched and published books on Blockchain. Kanwaljeet has completed PGCPM from IIMK and a Master’s degree from Bethel College, MN, USA.  

Kushagra Merchant  teaches Financial Management  at ISDM. Kushagra Merchant is the Founder of Social Synergy Foundation.  Kushagra provides organisation development support to organisations in impact investing, social enterprises as well as organisations in the development sector. Before he founded Social Synergy, Kushagra was a Management Consultant at Monitor Group and Accenture.    Having worked in both corporate as well as social sector organisations, he believes strongly that the leadership and management that social sector organisations need are different from that in the corporate sector since the purposes that drive them are different. Kushagra is an engineer from Mumbai University and went on to do his PGDM from IIM Calcutta.

Lopamudra has been working in different domains within the development sector for the last 11 years. Her experience lies primarily in Communications, Advocacy and Dissemination in the domains of Environment, Child Rights and Protection and Public Health.  Before joining ISDM, Lopamudra spent close to 4 years in the Public Health sector working on advocacy with government departments, elected representatives and health influencers. She completed BA (Cons) English Literature from Miranda House, University of Delhi, and MSW from Department of Social Work, University of Delhi. Lopa (as she is addressed) loves to travel, cook, read and write.

Manish worked for 8 years in the education start up space and has contributed in several ways in accounts and administration of reputed organizations – handling MIS, maintaining all official records including invoicing and payments, controlling inventory, issuing of purchase requisitions, vouchers and bookkeeping. He is trained in Tally, Taxation, Company law and MS Office programs. Manish has a B.Com and a Diploma in Computer Application from NIFA.

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.   

A Computer Science engineer by education, Nitisha started her career in the corporate sector. After leading small CSR volunteering projects in her company, she realized she wanted to contribute to more meaningful work. Since then, she then worked with Teach For India and Care India leading their Partnerships and Fundraising efforts.  She is an alum from the founding batch of Indian School of Development Management (ISDM) is currently leading our Fundraising and Alumni Engagement efforts.  Nitisha feels strongly about the issue of Sustainable Menstruation and Climate Crisis and is relentlessly working to take concrete action steps on both the issues. She is a Youth Ki Awaaz Menstrual Health Fellow and is leading the Let's Talk, Period Project in the Global Shapers Community- Delhi which is an initiative of the World Economic Forum.

Priti has worked as a clinician and a researcher for over 7 years.  She has led a number of outreach programmes and research studies in oral health. While working in public health, she felt the need to understand the development sector to be able to think and design in systems for ethical and sustainable social change. She began this exploration at ISDM as a student and now as a part of the research team. She feels strongly about issues around the ‘child-parent eco-system and volunteers for the same.  She completed her PGP in Development Leadership from ISDM, and Post-Graduate Diploma in Health Economics, Health Care Financing and Policy. She is a qualified Dentist having studied BDS and MDS (in Public Health Dentistry)

Priyanka graduated in English Literature from Indraprastha college For Women, University of Delhi; post which she entered the social sector with Teach For India joining them as a Fellow in 2011. The Fellowship turned out to be a great learning experience for her and she continued this journey as a Program Manager at TFI, coaching and mentoring more than 85 teachers and helping them undergo a personal transformation from college graduates to successful leaders. This Journey further continued as Priyanka joined the Akanksha Foundation as an Instructional Specialist coaching teachers and School Leaders. The desire to ground herself in a solid knowledge base and learning from experts and practitioners in the sector brought her to ISDM where she was a part of the first batch of PGPDL. Priyanka continues her journey at ISDM as a part of the Continuing Education Programme strategising and designing Leadership Development Programmes for Leadership in the sector. 

Ravi worked for 24 years in the corporate sector, most of which was at HSBC where he was the Regional Marketing Head for Middle East and Africa, Head of Consumer Products for Asia Pacific, Consumer Banking Head of Indonesia, CEO and President Director of Bank Ekonomi (a local bank in Indonesia that was acquired by HSBC). He quit his corporate career and switched to the social sector in 2011, joining Azim Premji Foundation where he was the Head of Education Leadership & Management. Ravi has an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and a B. Tech. from IIT-BHU.

Rohini has over 18 years of experience in the secretarial field. She worked for top management in the service and product sectors at Azim Premji Foundation, Gokak Textiles, Trident Infosol and Ocean Sparkle Ltd. Her areas of expertise include executive correspondence, calendar management, travel arrangements (domestic and international), report management, and coordination between various teams. She has an MBA (Tourism) and BA (Economics) and PGDCA.

Sajit has been actively involved with various 'Social Purpose Organisations' in the field of Education, Disability, Livelihood and Healthcare over the last 12 years. Prior to being part of ISDM, Sajit was involved with 'Yuva Parivartan' and was responsible for Resource Mobilization, Grants & Proposals Management, Donor Relationships and Program management for livelihood projects across 17 states in India. He is passionate about building capacities & capabilities of small Community based organisations and actively supports them in various capacities. Currently @ ISDM, his role as a 'Senior Academic Associate' includes building the Knowledge Infrastructure in collaboration with other teams, ensuring lack of bottlenecks in transfer of knowledge to the students and  maintaining & evolving a functional 'Learning Management System'. He has completed his Post-Graduation in Voluntary Service Organisation from NMIMS and B.Sc. Physics from Mumbai University

Sangita is a commerce postgraduate from Panjab University with specialization in Marketing and Human Resource Management. She is working in ISDM as a marketing executive and is a part of Communications and Engagement team. She is an ardent animal-lover, she enjoys spending time with nature, reading books and listening to poetry.

Sharad has worked extensively in the automotive industry working for global OEMs from different parts of the world. Besides building a solid business, Sharad has also travelled widely around the world. In addition to this, he has been working with schools driving scale and quality. Sharad is on the Board and actively supports IIMPACT which has established 2000 centres, working with over 55,000 out-of-school-girls to educate and mainstream them. Sharad has an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and a B.Tech from IIT Kanpur.

Zuha holds a degree in political science and social work. She was associated with social purpose organizations and has experience of working with children from vulnerable backgrounds, women and elderly from community and shelter home settings. She was a student of second batch of ISDM and is now a part of the ISDM family.