The Future of Boardrooms:
Greater Diversity, Higher Impact

A K Shiva Kumar is a development economist and policy advisor who works on issues of human development including poverty, health, nutrition, basic education, and the rights of women and children. He teaches economics and public policy as a visiting faculty member at Ashoka University, India, Indian School of Business, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is an advisor to the United Nations and other agencies and has served as a member of India’s National Advisory Council as well as other national and international academic, research and civil society organizations. Shiv is an alumnus of Bangalore University and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad as well as Harvard University from where he did his Masters in Public Administration and Ph.D in Political Economy and Government.

Sohini became Breakthrough’s second President and CEO in July 2017 and helmed the global organisation through a crucial founder transition for the first 3 years. She is now the CEO, Breakthrough India. She brings to her new role not only deep knowledge of Breakthrough’s issue areas and fundraising landscape, but also sincere dedication to the organisation, its unique impact, and its boundless growth potential. Sohini has worked with Breakthrough since 2010, most recently as Vice President of Resource Mobilisation and has developed an impressive portfolio of support for Breakthrough’s programs and has managed the wide range of partnerships across the globe.

Sohini has worked in the development sector for more than thirty years. Before Breakthrough, she worked with Ashoka Innovators for the Public for 10 long years to raise awareness on social entrepreneurship across India and ramp up its operations in South Asia. Sohini’s other experiences include co-founding Sanhita Gender Resource Centre — the first of its kind in Calcutta; working closely with traditional craftspeople and building artisan-market interfaces across India with Dastkar; and building communications, raising funds and helping set up livelihoods programmes for rural women with CINI-Child In Need Institute. Sohini also worked as the India strategy advisor for the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network from 2010-2013.

Sohini is a board member of Dastkar, a society for indigenous crafts and craftspeople, and of Kolkata Sanved, which uses dance movement for recovery from trauma and violence. She is also a trustee of Read India, an organisation that sets up self-sustaining community libraries across the country and a director on the board of Aakar Social Ventures, an organisation focusing on awareness on menstrual hygiene and last mile delivery.

Sohini has a master’s in English literature and a passion for crime fiction, cooking, handicrafts, and travel.

Ashraf Patel is the co-founder of Pravah and ComMutiny – The Youth Collective and a Member of The vartaLeap Coalition. Through all her endeavors she has been nurturing vibrant eco-systems across India to support young social entrepreneurs, changemakers, and active citizens. An Ashoka Fellow, she is also the winner of the SEOY award (2020) and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from XLRI. She is also on the board and steering groups of several grassroots, national and international bodies.

Mihir uses systems thinking and modeling to create conversations on sustainability agendas and facilitate group decision making processes. He founded DESTA Research LLP in April 2018 and currently is a visiting faculty for System Dynamics Modeling at TISS, Hyderabad. He works with philanthropies, think tanks and nonprofit entities to mainstream systems thinking into their planning and implementation.

His Industry expertise lies in Climate Change Adaptation Program of Watershed Organisation Trust, Pune, 2009 to 2014 and Earth Sciences & Climate Change at TERI, New Delhi, 2014 to 2017. He is also the Founder Director at DESTA Research LLP, 2018 till Present.

Mihir is a Post-Graduate in Finance from Sadhana Center for Management and Leadership Development, Pune.

A couple of years into his first job at Morgan Stanley in New York, Deval realized he wanted to be in India, to focus on the lives of the many millions that live without dignity and equity. So the Texas-born investment banker packed up, came to Mumbai, and co-founded Dasra.

It’s very first workshop, for around 20 non-profit organizations working with children, was to support them in learning from each other – and this collaborative learning philosophy remains central to how Dasra functions even today - nurturing powerful partnerships among stakeholders across the spectrum – including government, donors, organizations, experts and the media.

Deval leads Dasra’s strategic philanthropy efforts, and provides foreign and domestic philanthropists with informed investment strategies for the social sector – keeping human lives at the center of all of its thinking. Since 1999, he has directed over USD 72 million to the Indian social sector; incubated and launched the Dasra Philanthropy Forum and Dasra Philanthropy Week; initiated the Dasra Giving Circle, India’s largest collaborative giving platform; and launched the Dasra Changemakers program, a peer-led learning platform aimed at inspiring philanthropists to take bold action to solve some of India’s most pressing problems.

Deval holds a Bachelor's in Business Administration with a dual Honor's degree in Business and Finance from the University of Texas, Austin, is a Cordes Fellow, and a founding board member of Magic Bus and Villgro. In 2014, he was awarded the Forbes Philanthropy Award in the 'Crossover Leaders' category for successfully transitioning from investment banking to the non-profit sector.

Megha leads the Catalytic Philanthropy work at Dasra, where she and her team work closely with global philanthropists, family foundations and corporate foundations to facilitate and shape their philanthropic journey. As an advisor, she co-creates the giving strategy with funders that enables them to strategically create transformative impact that goes beyond writing the check.

In these conversations, she leverages her experience of working at Dasra to create and deliver education programs for NGO leaders, philanthropists, corporates and foundations. She has been involved in the design, launch and continuous delivery of one of Dasra’s premium offerings – the Philanthropy Education Program for donors and Leadership Program for non-profit leaders in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Robert Bosch Stiftung and Harvard University. She is a Birkman certified facilitator and leverages her practice to build greater team cohesion and develop talent within Dasra, non-profit partners and funders.

She brings with her seven years of corporate experience having worked for Citi Group, Future Group and Hindustan Unilever Ltd. She holds a Master’s degree in Business Management from S.P. Jain with a specialization in Marketing.

Pooja Taparia is Founder and Chief Executive of Arpan, a globally recognized, award winning NGO working towards the elimination of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in India. Based in Mumbai, with a team of over 100 dedicated professionals, Arpan is India’s largest NGO providing CSA Prevention and Intervention services for both children and adults. As a critical stakeholder for state and non-state actors, Arpan is a leading voice in the space of CSA Prevention and Intervention in India, and uses advocacy and research to push for policy and systemic change at the local, state and national levels.

As a leader, Pooja embodies the spirit of the modern-day social entrepreneur and has grown Arpan from a 2 person startup into a global thought leader in the CSA space, with innovative impact models that work with a range of stakeholders, from children and parents to state bodies and teachers. Arpan's key project focuses on Personal Safety Education in schools, teaching children and adolescents (ages 4 to 15) about personal safety so they can identify and seek help in unsafe situations. Arpan also trains and empowers teachers and parents with the knowledge, attitude and skills needed to prevent and deal with CSA.

Pooja is a member of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) and has received numerous awards for her work on Child Abuse, including the Inspire Award, the Astitwa Award, the Architects of the Future Award and the Karmaveer Puraskar Award.

Amitabh Behar, Chief Executive Officer of Oxfam India, is a global civil society leader, and an authority on tackling economic and gender inequality and building citizen participation. Mr. Behar currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the Board of CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organisations and activists dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society across the globe. He also serves on the boards of several other organisations, including the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, an Indian public policy think tank.

Prior to Oxfam, Mr. Behar was the Executive Director of National Foundation for India and served as the Convener of National Social Watch Coalition and the Co-Chair of Global Call to Action Against Poverty, a network of over 11,000 civil society organisations.

Moutushi oversees the Foundation’s India Office, which provides grantmaking to civil society organizations in Population and Reproductive Health and Girls' Secondary Education.

Prior to joining MacArthur in April 2013, she worked with Oxfam India, a rights-based organization that fights poverty and injustice. As Director – Programmes and Advocacy for Oxfam India, Moutushi led the process of developing and making operational the vision and strategy for programme management. Before Oxfam, Moutushi worked with the Department for International Development (DFID) in India for over 15 years. During her stint with DFID, she worked on a diverse portfolio of programs and projects across the country, including livelihoods promotion, health, rural development, financial and governance reforms and enterprise development.

Moutushi holds a Master of Business Administration (University Gold Medallist) degree from the Panjab University and a Master of Science in Applied Environmental Economics from the Imperial College of the United Kingdom. She has been visiting faculty with the Symbiosis Institute of International Business, teaching post-graduate course on financial services for the rural poor.

Rewriting many rules of the development sector Anshu made the masses his prime focus – not only as givers and receivers of material but also as the prime source of money, skills and services. He also structured imaginative solutions with urban surplus, to some basic but neglected needs outside the radar of the development sector and the civil society.

Over the years as Goonj garnered major awards, including World Bank’s Development Marketplace award and NASA’s Launch award, Anshu also won recognition as an Ashoka and Schwab Fellow while he was also listed as one of India’s top social entrepreneurs by Forbes Magazine and Fast Company.

Now Anshu is focused on global replication of his model to bridge the massive gap of social and economic inequities between urban prosperity and rural poverty. He speaks extensively on national and international forums to instigate urban and rural masses to engage more deeply with the issues faced by the society.

His vision for Goonj, “Goonj doesn’t want to grow only as an organization; it wants to grow as an idea… where organizations and individuals across the world take up the work, learning from our experience and help reach the basics of life to people who need it urgently. Mindful of their dignity and their needs, not as charity.

Dr. Dhir Jhingran is the Founder & Executive Director of Language and Learning Foundation (LLF), a non-profit focused on improving foundational learning of students through early literacy and multilingual education programs. LLF works closely with state governments to catalyse education system reform at scale in India. Dhir has worked in the primary education sector for 30 years, within and outside the Indian Government. Within the Government, as an officer of the Indian Administrative Service, Dhir has served in policy-making roles in the Ministry of Education at the national level and as Principal Secretary Education in the Government of Assam. He has also handled several other profiles, such as Senior Advisor to UNICEF India, Advisor to the Ministry of Education in Nepal, Asia Regional Director and Chief Program Officer with Room to Read. He has made significant contributions to the development and implementation of early grade reading programs in several countries in Asia and Africa as well as first language-based multilingual education programs in several states in India. Dhir has authored three books in primary education based on empirical research and has contributed to several books and journals. Dhir holds a master’s in Economics and a PhD in Education.

Narendranath has been with PRADAN since 1989. He has served in many senior management positions, including leading the embedded cell with the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM). He received a degree in mechanical engineering from Kerala University and a PGDRM from the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA). He lives in New Delhi with his spouse and daughter.

Nachiket Mor is an Indian banker. He is currently National Director for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is known for his inventions of financial devices to deliver banking services to villages and his contribution to trying to solve India's financial inclusion problem. He is also the Chairman of the board of directors of CARE India.

Vivek is a Senior Partner and Global co-leader of McKinsey’s Private Equity & Principal Investors Practice. He serves McKinsey on strategy, origination, transformations, organisation, sustainability and exits. He joined the company in 2005 as a Partner and has worked across offices in North America, Europe, Japan and India. Vivek serves as a Trustee of the Aspen Institute, an Advisor to Social Finance India (Social Impact Bonds) and Nishith Desai Associates, and served on a select non-profit education and healthcare boards including St. Judes and The Doon School.

Amita has worked in the philanthropy and non-profit space for over 20 years. After working in rural India with handloom weavers for several years, she spent eight years at GiveIndia, building the Mumbai Marathon fundraising event and working extensively on their retail fundraising website. Currently, Amita is the Chairperson of the Mumbai chapter of Social Venture Partners (SVP) – a global organisation that applies the principles of venture investing toward meeting philanthropic goals. Additionally, she sits on the board of The Mohan Dayal Charitable Hospital in Pardi, Gujarat, the Advisory Council of Antarang Foundation and is part of the Communications Team at St Jude India Childcare Centres.

Reshma is a business school graduate with more than 20 years of leadership experience in mission-driven nonprofits, social ventures, and philanthropic organisations. She currently heads Hindustan Unilever Foundation, a nonprofit focused on water conservation and governance. Previously, Reshma founded two social ventures including a specialist advisory firm on sustainable social responsibility and an accelerator for Agri and artisanal micro-entrepreneurs.

Norma Alvares is an advocate of the Bombay High Court and an activist on environmental issues of public concern, especially in her home state of Goa. Over the past two decades, she has argued over a hundred PILs(Public Interest Litigation) cases, taking up issues concerning environmental pollution, animal rights, and women's issues. She was instrumental in obtaining judicial orders banning the killing of stray dogs and the cruel sport of bullfighting in Goa. During the mid-nineties, she started the Goa branch of People for Animals. She is also a member of the Animal Welfare Board of India since the year 2000 and has also served as a member of the Committee for Supervision and Control of Experiments on Animal. In 2002, Norma was awarded the Padma Shri for her work for the protection of animals and the environment.

Suzanne is the Trustee of Pratham Books. She moved to the development sector in 2003 after gaining 14 years of marketing and communications experience in the corporate sector. Deeply interested in issues of equity and access to quality education, Suzanne has been involved with Pratham Books since its inception in 2004 and became the Managing Trustee of the organisation in 2010. She has been the Chairperson of Pratham Books since 2014 and through technology and innovation, is enabling the organisation to further its mission of "A book in every child’s hand". She also serves as a Trustee of the Akshara Foundation.

Venkat started his career with “The Times of India" incorporating brand management functions. He then helped set up Sony Entertainment Television in India as part of the core management team.

In 1996, he co-founded Eklavya School, Ahmedabad. The school uses innovative pedagogical approaches to help children learn rather than be taught. The school also ran a novel programme integrating children from the slums and from some of the wealthiest families of Ahmedabad city into the same classrooms. Venkat set up GiveIndia in 2000, to strengthen the "giving culture" in India by providing people with opportunities to contribute to good causes, with very high standards of transparency and accountability. GiveIndia today channels around Rs 25 cr p.a. to over 250 NGOs in India.

Shanti is the founder of ExempServ, a professional services organisation that provides value-added Financial reporting, Compliance & allied services to the Boards, Trustees & Senior Leadership of Social sector organisations to make them more impactful in their stated objectives and endeavour. In her professional life, Shanti has been engaged as a strategist, fundraiser, auditor, program manager, mentor and coach working in both domestic and multinational organisations.

Meenu Venkateswaran is an alumnus of Delhi School of Economics and IIM Bangalore and has over 30 years of experience with leading organisations in the corporate and social sectors. She is a founder member and board member of Pravah and Community—The Youth Collective. 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 handmade. 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.

From 2003, she has worked in several capacities in Pravah —including as head of Teacher Training and as the CEO. Currently she works part time with them, supporting the leadership team. As an independent consultant, she has undertaken assignments with national and international organisations including CII, Fresh Water Action Network, South Asia, Global Health Strategies Institute, IPPF, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and Vyaktitva.

Saanchi is a serial social entrepreneur by experience, a passionate advocate of gender justice who strives in all she does, to treat each person with dignity. An enthusiast of working with children and youth from under-resourced communities and in prisons. She did her bachelors in commerce and education and master's in business administration and social work with a major in women and child development. Saanchi's decade in the development sector has provided her with expertise in program design, strategy and implementation of education, life skills and gender-related initiatives. From being a PRAVAH changelooms’ fellow to facilitator in jagriti yatra, a trainer by calling and a core committee member with various organisations for prevention, prohibition and redressal of sexual harassment, she is presently leading TYCIA Foundation, an NGO, co-founded by her in the year 2011. The organisation works on education and criminal justice.

Geetanjali Babbar is the founder and director of a non-profit named Kat-Katha that works to empower and liberate sex workers in brothels of the largest red-light area known as G.B. Road of Delhi.

Geetanjali graduated with honours from Maharaja Agrasen College, Delhi University with a degree in journalism and has a post-graduation in development communications from Jamia Milia Islami University. She received a Gandhi Fellowship in 2010, a two-year leadership program and 2013 Laureate Global Fellowship.

While studying, she was involved with National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) where she got a chance to closely work with eunuchs.

Sonal Kapoor is the Founder-Director of Protsahan India Foundation. She graduated in Microbiology from Delhi University and earned a post-graduate in Business Administration from Symbiosis Institute of International Business and Indian School of Business. Sonal is a member of the expert committee on anti-child trafficking (Delhi Commission of Women) and a member of the CSO Coalition to End Child Marriage in India.

Her decade-long work in strengthening global child protection systems has been recognised in the form of several national and international fellowships, scholarships and awards. She is a speaker of repute at Harvard School of Graduate Education, Boston and Chicago Universities, CRC Asia, TEDxYOUTH, and several IIMs and IITs. Her work at Protsahan has been recognised by HundrED 2020 Innovators, Unilever Young Entrepreneurs Award 2019, Economic Times, Hindustan Times, and several UN organisations. She often engages with students from colleges across the world on the issue of social entrepreneurship and raises awareness to fight against child sexual abuse. Sonal has been an influential contributor in promoting awareness of India’s POSCO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) across the country.

Poonam Muttreja is the Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India (PFI), a nonprofit organisation that focuses on shifting the current thinking and programmes on family planning to empowering people, especially women and adolescents, to take decisions regarding their health, sexuality and well-being. Poonam has more than 35 years of experience in the socio-development sector. Before joining PFI, she was India Country Director at MacArthur Foundation. Poonam has also co-founded organisations in the areas of social justice (SRUTI) and craft (DASTKAR), and programmes on leadership (Ashoka Foundation, India). She has an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and has been visiting faculty at New Hampshire College in Amherst and Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana.