Alice Gugelev holds the position of Managing Director at GDI US and serves as the Chief Executive Officer of GDI Africa. In these roles, she collaborates with prominent corporations, commercial investors, and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) to incorporate social impact, innovation, and social entrepreneurship initiatives into their portfolios. Additionally, she assists philanthropists and social enterprises in achieving more impactful and transformative change at the systemic level.

Before joining GDI, Alice had professional experience at Bridgespan, Bain & Co, the World Bank, and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. She holds the positions of co-founder and executive director at The Muskoka Foundation, as well as co-founder and chief strategy officer at AppMkr. Alice holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and possesses a double major BA in International Economics and East Asian Studies from Columbia University and Stanford Japan Center. In her leisure time, Alice takes pleasure in spending quality moments at her cabin in Canada with her family – despite the presence of numerous uninvited black flies.

Shri Shailesh Kumar Singh, IAS (JH: 1991) is Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development. In his role as the Secretary to Government of India, Department of Rural Development, Shri Shailesh Kumar Singh works on comprehensive policy making for the Rural Development sector in India which involves formulation, coordination and implementation of programmes that address the development needs of the rural areas, focusing especially on mitigating and eradicating poverty and creating sustainable employment and livelihood opportunities.

He has more than 30 years of experience as an Indian Administrative Service Officer having worked in the fields of Small & Medium Enterprises, Steel, Coal, Transport, Urban Development & Rural Development, Industry, Elections, Information Technology, Education, Human Resource Development, General Administration, etc.

Service- Indian Administrative Services (IAS)
Year of allocation & cadre- 1991 – Jharkhand Cadre
Education- B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur and Masters in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard University

Shrish is an Associate Director with the Transforming Rural India Foundation and leads its operations in the state of Chhattisgarh. He has spent almost 15 years in the rural development sector focusing on system strengthening efforts that solves for the issues of rural at scale.

Shrish has been a British Chevening Scholar and holds masters degrees from University College London and Tata Institute of Social Sciences.