Anish Kumar

Anish Kumar is part of the lead team at Transform Rural India. He has been on the leadership team at India’s leading non-profit PRADAN, working on rural transformation.

Anish joined PRADAN in 1994. He has been part of the senior management team, looking at overall organization strategy and institution-building. He integrated the finance function, involving raising resources, statutory compliance, and building and managing linkages with stakeholders.

His areas of expertise include creating business organizations run by poor communities and facilitating participation of small-holder farmers in modern value chains. Anish developed and piloted the small-holder poultry prototype; was the CEO of the first poultry co-operative; and then scaled up the model across new geographies. He is a Board member of the National Smallholder Poultry Development Trust, an advisory and policy advocacy body.

Anish has been a member of the Planning Commission Working Group on disadvantaged farmers, and has been involved in designing of policies on producer collectives.

Anish has a post-graduate degree in Forest Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal.

Anirban Ghose

Anirban Ghose is part of the lead team at Transform Rural India. He has been on the leadership team at India’s leading non-profit PRADAN, working on rural transformation.

Anirban joined PRADAN in 1995 and led the field-based teams in Lohardaga and Khunti districts of Jharkhand. He was Director, Operations, in PRADAN, and was responsible for integration of all activities across the organization, involving planning and implementation of programs, monitoring progress, setting systems, design of strategies, staff development and managing key grants. His role included raising funds and building linkages with multiple stakeholders. As part of PRADAN’s Leadership Group, he was responsible for institution building and positioning PRADAN with stake-holders.

Anirban is recognized as the pioneer of automated book-keeping systems in women’s Self Help Groups and numerous technology for development programmes.

Anirban graduated in Business Studies from University of Delhi.

Dr. Sanjiv Phansalkar

Sanjiv has been engaged in development sector as thought leader, grant maker, writer, teacher, consultant for last 30 years. He has worked closely with Dr. Verghese Kurien in his early professional career.

He was Program Director at the Sir Dorabji Tata Trusts and now heads Vikasanvesh Foundation, a research organization supported by the Tata Trusts. He taught at Institute of Rural Management between 1981 and 1994. He was a free lance consultant during 1994-2005. Sanjiv was Team Leader of the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Prorgam (ITP) from 2005 to 2007.

Sanjiv has authored 7 books, over 20 research papers in national and international journals on small industry, water, livelihoods, civil society, and the co-operative sector, and a large volume of teaching material on these subjects. He contributes a fortnightly column in the e-publication Villagesquare.in; and is a visiting faculty at IIM Udaipur.

Sanjiv is a Fellow of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, from where he also completed his PGP in business management.

Ashish Deshpande

Mr. Ashish Deshpande is Head, Grants Management in Tata Trusts, and is primarily responsible for support to the programme team in the overall management of grants. He has more than 24 years’ experience in building and leading finance teams with significant operating scale and complexity.

Before joining Tata Trusts , Ashish worked in different capacities at Tata Communications, the erstwhile Videsh Sanchar Nigam (VSNL). He served as Head of Finance at Tata Communications Lanka (TCLL), Colombo, Sri Lanka. At TCLL, his key priorities included supporting the company’s growth, managing critical finance functions, and adhering to regulatory and compliance requirements. He led various projects in implementing automation systems and financial restructuring.

Originally from Nagpur, India, Mr Deshpande is an alumnus of the University of Nagpur.

Kumar Chaitanya (Invitee – Finance Advisor)

Mr. Kumar Chaitanya is Head, Grant Finance & Budgets and Individual Grants, at Tata Trusts. He is a Senior Chartered Accountant with experience in NPO financial reviews, setting up grant management systems, grant making, FCRA law, Income Tax law and NPO regulation in India.

Kumar worked earlier with The Habitat for Humanity, The Global Fund – PFI Led Consortium Programme on HIV/AIDS and The Jimmy Carter Work Project.

Bharti Gupta Ramola (Chair)

Ms Bharti Gupta Ramola has supported industries, government and development institutions in various capacities, and is currently focusing in improving productivity and last mile delivery using commercially available technology. A partner at PwC from 1984 to 2017, she was part of the founding team of varied advisory businesses (Corporate Finance and Recovery, Project Finance, Sustainability) for PwC in India. Ms Ramola has worked extensively on Financial Sector policy, the first Public Private Partnerships and the first loan portfolio sales in India. She also led PwC’s work on sustainability, climate change and project finance at different stages of her career. She became PwC’s India Market Leader and joined the management team in August 2011 focusing on building the brand and the institution. During this stint, she led the firm in identifying and seeding investment in technology led growth areas. In 2015 she took on additional direct responsibility for PwC’s Financial Services practice.

Ms. Ramola co-promoted the Basix Group of Social Enterprises in 1996 in her personal capacity. She serves on the Governing Body of Lady Shriram College, and advisory committee of Centre of Excellence for Research on Clean Air (CERCA) at IIT Delhi and is a member of the Board of Feedback Infra Pvt Ltd.

Ms. Ramola holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a Bachelor’s Degree (Hons) in Physics from St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.

Ireena Vittal

Ms Ireena Vittal is an independent director on the board of Tata Industries. A former partner with McKinsey & Co., she is a recognized thought partner to consumer-facing companies looking to build large-scale, profitable businesses in emerging markets. She has also served government and public institutions to design and implement solutions core to India’s development such as inclusive urban development and sustainable rural growth.

Ireena was a founding member of the economic-development practice and the global emerging-markets practice at McKinsey & Co. After 25 years in the corporate world, she is currently working in the urban and the agriculture spaces and is also an independent director on the board of select Indian companies such as Axis Bank, Titan Company, Indian Hotels, Godrej Consumer, Tata Global Beverages and Wipro as well as on the global advisory board of IDEO.org, a nonprofit dedicated to applying human-centered design to alleviate poverty. Prior to joining McKinsey & Co., Ireena worked with Nestle and with MaxTouch (now Vodafone).

Ireena graduated in electronics and has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

R. Venkat

Mr. R. Venkataraman is Advisor to Reliance Industries Limited. He is former Managing Trustee of Tata Trustsand is credited with redefining the Tata Trusts’ philanthropic approach, with a view to making it relevant and responsive to the current needs of society. He personally led Trusts’ major health initiative that focuses on issues related to malnutrition in young children and pregnant mothers.

Venkat has over 20 years’ business experience in the areas of finance, business support and strategy. From early 2007 to end 2012, he was Executive Assistant to Mr. Ratan N. Tata, the former Chairman of the Tata Group, until his retirement in December 2012. He continues to support Mr. Tata in the office of the Chairman, Tata Trusts . Prior to his association with Mr. Tata, Venkat was Head of Business Support at Qatar Foundation, a non-profit organization engaged in Education, Science and Community Development, based in Doha.

He has worked in Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, Mumbai (VSNL), India’s former international, long distance telecommunications monopoly, now known as Tata Communications, and the Gujarat State Finance Corporation, based in Ahmedabad.

Venkat is a science graduate and has received his MBA from the Sri Satya Sai University. He is also a law graduate from Mumbai University and has completed his Advance Management Program (AMP) from the Harvard Business School. He is a member of the Board of Air Asia India Private Limited and a Trustee of several Tata Trusts and other non-profits.

Dr. Sanjiv Phansalkar

Sanjiv has been engaged in development sector as thought leader, grant maker, writer, teacher, consultant for last 30 years. He has worked closely with Dr. Verghese Kurien in his early professional career.

He was Program Director at the Sir Dorabji Tata Trusts and now heads Vikasanvesh Foundation, a research organization supported by the Tata Trusts. He taught at Institute of Rural Management between 1981 and 1994. He was a free lance consultant during 1994-2005. Sanjiv was Team Leader of the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Prorgam (ITP) from 2005 to 2007.

Sanjiv has authored 7 books, over 20 research papers in national and international journals on small industry, water, livelihoods, civil society, and the co-operative sector, and a large volume of teaching material on these subjects. He contributes a fortnightly column in the e-publication Villagesquare.in; and is a visiting faculty at IIM Udaipur.

Sanjiv is a Fellow of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, from where he also completed his PGP in business management.

Anirban Ghose

Anirban Ghose is part of the lead team at Transform Rural India. He has been on the leadership team at India’s leading non-profit PRADAN, working on rural transformation.

Anirban joined PRADAN in 1995 and led the field-based teams in Lohardaga and Khunti districts of Jharkhand. He was Director, Operations, in PRADAN, and was responsible for integration of all activities across the organization, involving planning and implementation of programs, monitoring progress, setting systems, design of strategies, staff development and managing key grants. His role included raising funds and building linkages with multiple stakeholders. As part of PRADAN’s Leadership Group, he was responsible for institution building and positioning PRADAN with stake-holders.

Anirban is recognized as the pioneer of automated book-keeping systems in women’s Self Help Groups and numerous technology for development programmes.

Anirban graduated in Business Studies from University of Delhi.

Anish Kumar

Anish Kumar is part of the lead team at Transform Rural India. He has been on the leadership team at India’s leading non-profit PRADAN, working on rural transformation.

Anish joined PRADAN in 1994. He has been part of the senior management team, looking at overall organization strategy and institution-building. He integrated the finance function, involving raising resources, statutory compliance, and building and managing linkages with stakeholders.

His areas of expertise include creating business organizations run by poor communities and facilitating participation of small-holder farmers in modern value chains. Anish developed and piloted the small-holder poultry prototype; was the CEO of the first poultry co-operative; and then scaled up the model across new geographies. He is a Board member of the National Smallholder Poultry Development Trust, an advisory and policy advocacy body.

Anish has been a member of the Planning Commission Working Group on disadvantaged farmers, and has been involved in designing of policies on producer collectives.

Anish has a post-graduate degree in Forest Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal.

Abhishek Gupta

Abhishek is taking care of Rajpur block of Barwani district in Madhya Pradesh as Engagement Manager. He is working towards heralding village prosperity and implementing TRIF’s interventions aimed at bringing about lasting changes in areas of health, education, governance, livelihood and more.

Prior to joining TRIF, Abhishek was working with Landesa in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh. During his assignment with Landesa, Abhishek worked relentlessly to secure land rights for farmers in the area. He also contributed in capacity building trainings for revenue officials and assisted the farmers to devise processes in order to elect their representatives. In his career spanning more than ten years, Abhishek has worked with Care India, UNDP and CAPART.

He has worked towards capacity building, skill development and policy advocacy.
Abhishek has an MBA in rural development from Gobind Ballabh Pant Institute of Social Science, Allahabad.

Aliva Das

Aliva as a Senior Manager-Youth Initiative is incharge of TRIF’s skill development initiatives and leads the ambitious initiative in creating a one-stop solutions for youth seeking to access Skill India programmes.

She has more than five years of project management experience with District and State Government. For around 2 years, she worked as a Consultant for Government of Madhya Pradesh, as part of Skill Development Mission. Prior to this role, she worked for around 3 years as Prime Minister’s fellow, working on development projects in Nabrangpur and Deogarh districts of Odisha.

Aliva is pursuing her Masters in Development Practice from Tata Institute of Social Science (Mumbai), and holds a Bachelors of Engineering in Electronics & Communications from Biju Patnaik University of Technology (Odisha).

Anirban Ghose

Anirban Ghose is part of the lead team at Transform Rural India. He has been on the leadership team at India’s leading non-profit PRADAN, working on rural transformation.

Anirban joined PRADAN in 1995 and led the field-based teams in Lohardaga and Khunti districts of Jharkhand. He was Director, Operations, in PRADAN, and was responsible for integration of all activities across the organization, involving planning and implementation of programs, monitoring progress, setting systems, design of strategies, staff development and managing key grants. His role included raising funds and building linkages with multiple stakeholders. As part of PRADAN’s Leadership Group, he was responsible for institution building and positioning PRADAN with stake-holders.

Anirban is recognized as the pioneer of automated book-keeping systems in women’s Self Help Groups and numerous technology for development programmes.

Anirban graduated in Business Studies from University of Delhi.

Anish Kumar

Anish Kumar is part of the lead team at Transform Rural India. He has been on the leadership team at India’s leading non-profit PRADAN, working on rural transformation.

Anish joined PRADAN in 1994. He has been part of the senior management team, looking at overall organization strategy and institution-building. He integrated the finance function, involving raising resources, statutory compliance, and building and managing linkages with stakeholders.

His areas of expertise include creating business organizations run by poor communities and facilitating participation of small-holder farmers in modern value chains. Anish developed and piloted the small-holder poultry prototype; was the CEO of the first poultry co-operative; and then scaled up the model across new geographies. He is a Board member of the National Smallholder Poultry Development Trust, an advisory and policy advocacy body.

Anish has been a member of the Planning Commission Working Group on disadvantaged farmers, and has been involved in designing of policies on producer collectives.

Anish has a post-graduate degree in Forest Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal.

Anupam Kishor Pandey

Anupam is based at Samnapur block of Dhindori district in Madhya Pradesh as Engagement Manager. He is works with the Self Help Groups, NGO partners and Madhya Pradesh Rajya Aajevika Forum in order to bring out comprehensive and sustainable changes in the villages across various dimensions – livelihood, health, sanitation and more.

Before joining TRIF, Anupam was working with ‘WomenWeave’, an organization that is doing its bit towards making weaving a sustainable and dignified livelihood activity especially for women in rural India. Anupam worked towards strengthening the supply chain network for better livelihood opportunities of the weavers in Dindori and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh.

Anupam has a Post Graduate in Social Work from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad.

Anuradha Hui

Anuradha is based at Bijadandi block of Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh as Engagement Manager. Anuradha works with multiple stakeholders – communities, NGO partners and state government to bring about sustained, multi-dimensional village development.

Before joining TRIF, Anuradha was working as program officer with Antara Foundation in Baran district of Rajasthan to reduce IMR and MMR in the district.

Auradha has a Masters in Social Work from Utkal University, Odisha.

Arjun Kaurava

Arjun is posted at Amarpur block in Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh, as Engagement Manager. He works towards bringing about transformational and sustainable changes in the villages so the inhabitants enjoy better opportunities and can achieve their potential. Arjun works closely with the Madhya Pradesh Rajya Aajevika Forum, community collectives and civil societies.

Prior to working for TRIF, Arjun was a Senior Project Consultant with E&Y where he worked with the Madhya Pradesh Government towards strengthening single window facilitation system for investment promotion in the state. He has also worked with Department of Horticulture and Food Processing (MP Government), where he was actively involved in grassroot intervention.

Arjun has done is Post Graduation in Development Management from Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal.

Ashok Kumar

Ashok Kumar is anchoring the farm prosperity interventions at TRI, aimed at bringing prosperity to small and marginal farmers.

Prior to joining TRI, he was working at PRADAN, and has extensive experience in integrating agriculture with Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) program, and supporting teams in promoting agriculture as a robust livelihood activity for rural poor. His areas of specialization include agriculture, INRM, market linkages, community managed micro lift irrigation, Women’s Self Help Groups, training community resource persons, and anchoring research projects with international research organizations.

He holds a Masters in Agriculture (Plant Pathology) from RAU Pusa.

Bapi Gorai

Bapi is a Manager responsible for the “Centre of Excellence in Agriculture” at Ranchi and is involved in training Agriculture Entrepreneurs (AE), which aims at showcasing latest technologies that can be used by farmers to transform the Farm based livelihoods. The centre also has an integrated training facilities for Agro-Entrepreneurs and farmers.

He has around ten years of engagement experience with farming community. For around 5 years, he worked as Subject Matter specialist with PRADAN, supporting professional development teams and farmers on issues related to agriculture technology and training needs. He was further actively involved in multidisciplinary research for development project in collaboration with Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR).

Bapi has completed Masters in Agriculture (Agronomy), from UBKV, West Bengal.

Gaurav Misra

Gaurav is the State Lead for MP, leading TRIF partnership with the State Government. He is responsible for building formal partnership with the State Govt. and for aligning embedded teams in the Govt. with TRIF mission goals.

He has more than seventeen years of experience in implementing and managing development projects with special focus on gender and poverty. He worked in mainframe government system for almost nine years, providing advisory services to state governments (UP and MP) towards poverty eradication and capacity building. Also, he has more than nine years of experience of working with tribal community for sustainable livelihoods enhancement in various districts of western and eastern region of Central India.

Gaurav has completed his Masters in Sociology from CSJIM University, Kanpur.

Gouri Rajagopal

Gouri currently works as Manager for Education Sector Council and New Initiatives, and is responsible for enhancing the efficiency, efficacy and fidelity of TRIF’s current engagements in education through IT-based solutions. She is also involved with TRIF’s youth engagement where she works in conscientising the influencers of tomorrow around issues of rural India particularly the challenges and opportunities that exist in stranded India.

Previously, she had worked as an Associate at Nine Dot Nine Education, where-in she was involved in a consulting project to build a school education pipeline in the resource starved districts of rural India so as to bridge the gaps in the current rural school education system. Prior to that, she had worked as a Business Analyst at EXL Inductis for a financial services client.

Gouri holds a B.Tech degree from NIT Tiruchirapalli. She has also completed Post Graduate Programme in Management Practice (PGPM) from Vedica Scholars Programme for Women.

Javed Siddiqui

Javed as a Manager(Education), anchors the TRI-Education Sector Council. He is responsible for establishing and nurturing partnerships, and is also involved in supporting field engagement for deeper understanding and ground-level strategic actions.

He has around sixteen years of professional experience in Elementary Education and Development sector, out of which for eleven years he worked as a Research Associate for NGOs and state education bodies across India, managing various programs and project components. Prior to joining TRIF Javed has worked with leading organisations like Eklavya, Azim Premji Foundation, etc. He has also worked as a Resource Support for government/non-governmental entities such as S.C.E.R.T., BGVS Maharashtra, Doosra Dasak Rajasthan India, etc.

Javed has done his Masters in Development Management from Asian Institute of Management Philippines. He further holds a post graduate degree in International Education & Development from University of Sussex, UK.

Kashi Metya

Kashi leads the State Irrigation Execution Cell embedded within the Rural Development Department in Govt. of Jharkhand

He has around 25 years of extensive experience in rural development sector, primarily in developing programmatic strategies, proposal development, fund raising, planning and designing implementation, setting systems, monitoring and evaluation. Prior to joining TRI, Kashi was part of National Rural Livelihood Mission (Ministry of Rural Development) and was responsible for farm based livelihoods by providing support to State Rural Livelihood Missions (SRLMs). Prior to his engagement with the NRLM, Kashi has worked with several reputed Civil Society organisations like PRADAN, Action for Social Advancement (ASA) and Seva Mandir in several of the poverty regions in Eastern India – Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar.

Kashi has completed Natural Resource Management (Competing Claims) programme from Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He further holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from Institute of Rural Management, Anand-IRMA.

Neeraj Ahuja

Neeraj is currently working as Senior Manager- Youth Initiative. He manages partnerships at Transform Rural India, anchoring the initiative in Madhya Pradesh, managing the collaboration of partner organizations, and liaising with various government departments.

He was a part of the Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship (PMRDF) program, where he was instrumental in the development of critical infrastructure and worked with women’s collectives to set up micro-enterprises. Earlier, he worked as a systems engineer with Infosys Technologies, following which he joined the ICICI Fellows programme and worked on issues of Panchayati Raj and local self-governance in Panna district, Madhya Pradesh.

Neeraj is a graduate in Electronics and Communication Engineering and is pursuing Masters in Development Studies from TISS.

Neha Gupta

Neha manages partnerships at Transform Rural India, contributing in implementing the vision, strategy and development activities in collaborative engagement with all the stakeholders in Madhya Pradesh.

She has been a Prime Minister Rural Development Fellow (PMRDF) in Ministry of Rural Development, working closely with district administration and line departments. She has also worked in PRADAN for almost 6 years, where she was directly engaged with community mobilization processes; promotion and nurturing of women SHGs and its apex institutions; planning and implementation of livelihood activities.

Neha holds a B. Tech (Agricultural Engineering) from College of Agricultural Engineering, JNKVV.

Pankaj Jiwrajka

Pankaj as a Manager (Partnerships) is responsible for partnership curation in all four pilot blocks in Jharkhand. He is also engaged with developing good working relationship with the Government of Jharkhand.

He was part of the Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship (PMRDF) program, where he was instrumental in facilitating partnerships between various social enterprises and Department of Health & Family Welfare (DoHFW), Govt. of Jharkhand. Further, as part of Office of Deputy Commissioner, Jharkhand, he developed a micro-plan, coordinated and monitored implementation of Sonaghati Development Plan, impacting 30,000 villagers. Prior to his experience with Govt. of Jharkhand, he worked as a Process Engineer with Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd.

Pankaj has completed his B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from NIT Durgapur, and has done M.Sc. in Development Practice from Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai.

Runa Shamim

Runa as a Manager, Health and Nutrition sector council, anchors the TRI-Health and Nutrition. She is responsible in developing a unified content of interventions, tracking program implementation, knowledge creation from experiences of ground, evidence based policy engagement together with nurturing partnership.

She has 12 years of professional experience in implementing reproductive, child, adolescent health and nutrition programs with international funding agencies, including Care India, AgaKhan Foundation India and UNFPA India. Prior to joining TRI, she worked with UNFPA and was deputed to National Health Mission, Department of Health and Family Welfare (Government of Orissa) supporting implementation of Rashtriya Kishore Swasthya Karyakram, flagship program Government of India. She has expertise in donor engagements and has successfully implemented donor driven programs across rural Northern and Eastern India, and urban Telengana.

Runa holds an MBA degree in Human Resource Management from Lucknow University. She also holds Post Graduate Degree, Masters in Science Social Policy and Development from The London School of Economics and Political Science, London UK .

Rupak Ghosh

Rupak is works in the Petlawad block of Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh as Engagement Manager. Rupak is on a mission to bring about transformational and sustainable changes across various indicators in the lives of people living there and to enable a more nurturing environment for the future generations.

Before joining TRIF, Rupak was working with Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansthan for the cause of water management and water conservation in the state of Madhya Pradesh. In his thirteen-year long career, Rupak has worked on verticals like community mobilisation and capacity building.

He holds an M.Sc in Human Rights from University of Calcutta.

Shantanu Sahu

Shantanu is managing our farm prosperity initiative and is based at our Ranchi state office. He is leading one of our entrepreneur programs for youth in Jharkhand, focused on farm-based employment. Earlier, he has been responsible for facilitation and successful implementation of a unique pilot project aimed at transforming the engagement of NRLM promoted community institutions around multi-dimensional change, in Sagar (MP), as an Engagement Manager.

Prior to joining TRI, Shantanu worked with HDFC Bank Ltd as Empowerment Manager in its Sustainable Livelihood Initiative division, providing the unbanked and poor (specifically women) with livelihood finance and non-financial services. Also, he has worked as an Executive with PRADAN wherein he closely worked with state and market actors to enhance rural livelihoods.

He holds a Post Graduate degree in Financial Management from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), and is a Commerce graduate from St. Xavier’s (Ranchi).

Shobha Dhyani

Shobha is currently working as Executive-Finance,Accounts and Administrative, overseeing administration of all TRI offices (Delhi, Bhopal and Ranchi).

She has over 13 years of work experience, which includes her experience with Agriculture Skill Council of India. Her profile constituted data analysis and online database assessment. She further supported in implementation of new projects, organisational integration and presentations for meetings/ engagements. Also, she has worked with PRADAN for around 5 years, tracking organisation wide planning and progress on a regular basis along with generating MIS for the organisation.

Shobha holds a post graduate degree in Social Work from IGNOU, Delhi.