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Field Lessons from our Social Entrepreneurs
October 19, 2020While social entrepreneurs begin with a passionate and sound understanding of the social issue at hand, along the way their perceptive minds pick up a…
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Beginner’s Guide: Building a team for your social organisation
October 13, 2020Over the last few years, the social sector has become the go-to choice for several professionals entering the workspace. As working remotely has become the…
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10 things you wish someone told you about social entrepreneurship
October 05, 2020Social entrepreneurs are unparalleled catalysts of social change. They possess the ability to contest critical social issues through innovative ideas and mobilise resources as well…
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Looking for Incubation Support?
September 29, 2020When you want to soar, you need the right wind beneath your wings. Today, as a social entrepreneur in India, you have dozens of incubators…
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Trestle Labs: Enabling India’s visually impaired to read any text!
September 19, 2020“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision” – Helen Keller In India, there is a high dropout rate post…
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Eco Farm: Replenishing Soil Fertility with Kitchen Waste
September 14, 2020Organic farming is considered as an eco-friendly, more profitable, and healthier option for farmers as well as end consumers. India is home to 30 per…
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Lessons on Transforming Government Schools in India
September 01, 2020Two Gandhi Fellows, Surender Yadav and Akash Mishra along with Lucky Gautam started Self-Reliant India (SRI) in 2017 with a simple yet multi-faceted objective – empower children through quality…
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ERC Eye Care: Providing affordable & accessible on-demand eye care in India
August 24, 2020In India, the ratio of an ophthalmologist to citizen stands at a poor 1:90000. According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) study (2013), over 550…
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Key Education Foundation: Redesigning Early Childhood Education in India
August 17, 2020Science indicates that 90% of a child’s brain is developed by the age of 6. However, for many preschoolers in India, there is a lack…
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Ramanathan V
Ram’s career spreads over three decades of operational and strategic leadership roles across high tech capital medical equipment, innovative medical devices, commoditized medical consumables, competitive pharma products and disruptive diagnostic services across diverse medical specialties. Ram has worked with US MNCs (ATL, Stryker, Boston Scientific, Baxter), European MNC (Karl Storz), VC invested organization (XCyton Diagnostics and Cura Healthcare) and self-owned consulting enterprise.
Fully realizing that for innovative and affordable healthcare to be delivered by startups they need lots of nurturing, Ram, now, dedicates most of his time with startups. Ram wants to ‘plow back’ his variety of experience, general management expertise and network to coach, collaborate and support creation of successful and sustainable healthcare startups. Ram is associated with a few incubator / accelerator platforms as well as Investment groups and supports as a mentor, angel investor etc.
Shalini Singh
Shalini is a leadership and executive Coach with over two decades of corporate and coaching experience with organizations like British Airways, United Online Services, Ford Motors, Benneton, and Princeton Review. She has led teams & made landmark contributions to reduce costs , increase profits, uphold and maintain high standards of service etc. Shalini has coached senior to mid-level professionals in organizations like Cisco, Microsoft, Merrill Lynch, Pepsi etc.
Having pursued two management degrees (MBA) in Marketing & Human resources, Shalini is also certified by the International Coach Federation (ICF) as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC). After living in India, Dubai, Nigeria, and Indonesia, Shalini understands multicultural perspectives set in different contexts
Vikas Goel
Vikas has more than 3 decades of experience in variety of roles across multiple domains. Vikas is a science graduate, and have added certification from IIMA on business leadership and general management.
Vikas started his career with Johnson & Johnson and then moved on to become an entrepreneur in 1990-91 in telecoms and technology solutions. Having started his own venture by name of Comm-sys Information system P Ltd, he was at the helm of affairs managing business development, product management & finances for 16 years. During these 16 years CISPL grew to about 40 Cr revenues and a team size of 200.
He has worked with Tata Teleservices as an advisor to the board , and then took full time opportunity in various roles with TTL. Later,he moved to Africa to join as COO for Broadband services with Nigeria’s home grown Telecom operator Globacom. On return to India he joined E&Y as an external/independent consultant and SME for “ Make in India “ program. Currently he is key member of PadUp mentor board helping qualified start-ups develop business strategy.
Aparna Gupta
Aparna is a TedX speaker, artist, coach and facilitator.
She herself is highly goal oriented, and so, a few years ago, she decided to jump aboard the Executive Coaching ship as a way to help people pursue their goals.
She worked her way up choosing to direct and produce unique shows for various broadcasters like India’s national TV network Doordarshan, Channel [V], Sony Entertainment Television, including niche channels like BBC World and National Geographic Channel,
and was Creative Head of the Branded Content department at Zoom Television, where she worked very closely with the Sales team to attain high revenue goals.
She quit television to pursue her love for painting, working on specific art-commissions and three art exhibitions.
Teesha Thomas
Teesha has a degree in Mass Media, specializing in Advertising. She has nine years of experience in. Over her nine years of experience in digital marketing as a copywriter, scriptwriter, and creative & brand strategist, she has worked with agencies to create brand communication for 80+ brands and companies. She is currently also foraying into chat marketing, UX, and conversation design.
Shailie Mehta
Shailie has a degree in Applied Mathematics from University of California, Los Angeles. She has ten year work experience in the development sector with organisations like Friends of Women’s World Banking and Dharma Life. Shailie is the co-founder of Acacia Eco, a social enterprise working on afforestation projects with a specific focus on urban greening and reviving degraded soils.
Karan Kaushik
Karan has over 12 years of experience, leading engineering programs across Defense Aerospace and Electric Vehicle sectors. He has also completed his MBA from UNSW, Australia. He has recently moved to the social development space, to help organizations create greater impact.
Rakesh Kacker
Mr. Rakesh Kacker IAS (Retd.) is an Independent Director at PTC India Ltd, PTC India Financial Services Ltd and Planetcast Media Services Ltd. He has earlier worked as Secretary to the Government of India and held various posts in the Government. After retiring from the Government he also worked as Director India Habitat Centre from 2014 to 2018. While in Government Mr. Kacker was deputed to the Indian Peace Keeping force as a civilian Advisor from October 1987 to May 1988. He also worked on deputation to TERI ( and is now President of the TERI Alumni Association) and the Indian Wind Energy Association. He was till recently an Independent Director on ONGC Videsh. He has also worked as member/Chairman of several committees of the GOI in the power and coal sectors in the past few years.
Sandesh Kirkire
Sandesh Kirkire has 25 years of experience in financial services covering areas Corporate Finance, Investment Banking and Fund Management. Sandesh spent over 20 years with the Kotak Group in various capacities and was the CEO of Kotak Asset Management from 2005-2014. Sandesh is a visiting faculty at JBIMS.
He is an early stage investor with a startup portfolio across Telecom, Big Data, E commerce, Wearable Healthcare devices and Education. He is Business advisor at Opulent Infotech Pvt. Ltd. and Vegayan Systems Pvt. Ltd, ; Director at Ixsight Technologies; Advisory Board Member at Nimbleheart Inc.
Sandesh also supports philanthropic initiatives and Cofounded Apasarjanam Foundation in Dec 2020 to support passionate people and NGOs working in the areas of education and livelihood.
Kiran Advani
Director, Strategic Partnerships
Kiran in her 40 year career, has spent 11 years in Advertising & Sales with Bennett, Coleman & Co where she interacted with advertising agencies, clients/advertisers from all sectors.
Thereafter Kiran specialised in marketing mega-events as an advisor to Wizcraft and other agencies. She managed funding for some of India’s biggest events like the Michael Jackson concert, Deep Purple Show, UB 40 Concert, McDowells Derby, IIFA Awards for the first 4 years since inception in 2000, Mumbai Boat Show etc. In mid-2007, she entered the field of HR and worked independently for 5 years concentrating on senior placements for select clients. Post this, Before joining UnLtd, she raised funds for Agastya International Foundation.
Hemendra Mathur
Hemendra has over 25 years of experience in venture capital, private equity, management consulting and investment banking. Hemendra in his career has invested in several early-stage agritech companies and SMEs in food processing and agricultural supply chain. He is working as Venture Partner with Bharat Innovation Fund –investing in deep-tech start-ups across sectors. Hemendra is also co-founder of ThinkAg – a platform for accelerating the adoption of innovations in agriculture. He also chairs the task force for agri startups at FICCI.
R. Mukundan
Mr. R. Mukundan, Managing Director & CEO of Tata Chemicals Limited. An Alumnus of Harvard Business School, during his 31-year career with Tata Group, he has held various responsibilities across the Chemical, Automotive, and Hospitality sectors of the Tata Group. He serves on Executive Committees of various industry forums.
Sumit Jain
Akhil Shahani
An MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Akhil Shahani’s twin areas of focus are education and entrepreneurship. His family has been in the education sector for over sixty years, and he continues to fly the flag high. As the Director of the Shahani Group, Mr. Shahani is trying to bring international methods of management education to India through the group’s various initiatives. He believes that a good management education involves not only academic learning, but also developing one’s network, personality and values. Apart from his work with the many educational institutions run by the family, he is also involved with the Kaizen Management Advisors Pvt. Ltd., a Private Equity firm investing in education and also mentors young entrepreneurs in his spare time. He is also the recipient of many awards like the Bharat Shiromani Award, the Bharat Gaurav Award and the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award including mentions in notable educational journals.
Riddhi Mastakar
Associate - Incubation
Riddhi has a Masters in Development Economics from the University of Sussex, UK, where she also worked as a Teaching Assistant, conducting seminars for undergraduate economics students. She loves all things numbers and thrives on analysing data. As a certified mountaineer, she has conducted many hikes in the Sahyadri mountains. In her free time, you’ll find her on her yoga mat or on a slackline at the beach. Her love for fitness activities has also led her to work as a Sales Assistant at Decathlon during her college days, a stint that she immensely enjoyed.
Swati Mankar
Senior Operations Manager
Swati is the backbone of UnLtd India and has been with us since 2008. She looks after the smooth functioning of the organisation from an administrative perspective. No one gets on the team until they have had a thorough conversation with Swati.
Sonu Daga
Finance Manager
Sonu has been a Chartered Accountant since 2011. Extremely meticulous and organised with her work, Sonu handles all things finance flawlessly; reporting and handling of Tax matters, Finalisation of accounts and preparing financial statement, Review and monitoring all tax compliances, computation of Income Tax and filing of Income Tax Returns etc. She loves to keep up with the latest movies, music and books.
Pradnya Shinde
Associate, Operations
With a total experience of + 10yrs, Pradnya takes care of the overall office management, logistical planning along with a pot load of things. Prior to joining to UnLtd India, Pradnya was a Secretary and Administrative Exec. at Fabdecon Engineers. She loves to spend time with her kids, reading novels and listening to music.
Shilpa Lingayat
Associate, Accounts
Shilpa has all the know-how on managing accounts and administration. Apart from being a numbers wizard, Shilpa has worked as a stage artist in Marathi Cultural Programs for 4 years. She loves dancing, singing and cooking.
Amitabh Vyas
Senior Manager, Scouting
Amitabh has 15 years of experience in Corporate Social Responsibility aligned with Project Management, Stakeholders Management, Business Development, Alliances and Government Liaison. He has previously worked with Marico Innovation Foundation and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Anshu Bhartia
CEO
With 23 years of working seamlessly in non-profit and for-profit global organisations, Anshu has been providing strategic advisory guidance to promoters of social enterprises. Prior to UnLtd India, she was the CEO of Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture Network (RRAN) and Friends of WWB. When her calendar isn’t too busy, Anshu loves to take a silent walk amongst the remains of our city’s illustrious past, and unwind with a good diving session.
Pankaj Jain
Pankaj Jain is the Founder at Impact Law Ventures. A corporate lawyer by profession, Pankaj specializes in venture capital and private equity matters, especially in the impact investing and venture philanthropy sector. He is also an ardent advocate of building bridges between law, development and entrepreneurship. He currently advises a number of start-up entrepreneurs, small and growing businesses, social business enterprises, non-profit organizations, impact investors and donor organizations on a range of legal, regulatory and corporate governance issues in India by providing affordable access to a trusted and competent legal counsel.
Jayesh Parekh
Jayesh Parekh is a Managing Partner at Good Protein Fund, a cross border venture fund that invests in Alternative Protein companies. He was one of the Founders of Sony Entertainment Television and is a board member of Sanctum Wealth Management, One Animation, Aavishkaar India II Fund, and Milaap. Jayesh is an active impact investor, and has investments in various Venture Capital funds in Silicon Valley and start-up enterprises across technology and digital media space.
Shalaka Joshi
Shalaka Joshi is the Gender Lead, South Asia for the International Finance Corporation (IFC)- the private sector focused arm of the World Bank – where she works on gender in the private sector. Shalaka has over 17 years of global leadership experience in early-stage investing, social venture, financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, livelihoods and market-based solutions to poverty in emerging markets, especially in Asia.
Her social enterprise career began with UNICEF where she worked on micro-planning and building public- private-nonprofit alliances. She also worked with Ashoka, a global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Her private sector experience includes ICICI Bank – India’s largest private sector bank – where she led the process of integrating private sector partners into the Bank’s initiatives in health, education and micro finance.
Shalaka’s investment experience includes being part of the early team at the IFMR Trust and serving as a Managing Director of Unitus Impact (now Patamar Capital)- an early-stage fund which supports the growth of scalable livelihood ventures in Asia. Shalaka also served as Managing Director, Asia-Pacific for Toniic- the world’s most active network of portfolio investors, supporting ventures and funds across 28 countries. She led Toniic’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region and as its Chief Investment Officer globally, across asset classes.
A Chevening scholar and an Aspen Global Leadership fellow, Shalaka serves on the Boards of Toniic Global (which seeks to move millions of dollars into impact investing globally), the IEF Entrepreneurship Foundation (which works with Indian State governments to mainstream entrepreneurship) and UnLtd India. She also serves as part of the Investment council for Niti Aayog’s Women’s Entrepreneurship platform and as part of CII’s National Committee on Women’s Empowerment in India. She is based out of Mumbai, India and enjoys poetry, travel and dance.
Richard Alderson
Richard is the co-founder of UnLtd India. With a passion for education, leadership and technology, he has helped start a number of social enterprises in UK and India such as Journeys for Change which takes leaders on immersive journeys to help them make more impact in the world; and Careershifters, which is reinventing career education for professionals moving into more fulfilling work. While not working, he can be found scouring the world for hats, cocktails and the perfect mango.
Pooja Warier Hamilton
Pooja is the Chief Customer Officer at Apolitical, a peer to peer learning and knowledge network for governments and a Board member of Apolitical Foundation supporting the next generation of elected leaders. Prior to Apolitical, she was the Founding and Managing Partner of Conduit Connect, an impact investing platform. She was the co-founder and former CEO of UnLtd India for 11 years, an incubator for social entrepreneurs. She also co-founded Bombay Connect, a co-working space, and Journeys for Change offering immersive experiences for global leaders to learn from entrepreneurs. Pooja is a member of Educate Girls’ UK Advisory Council and Greenwood’s Advisory board. Pooja was selected as a TED India Fellow in 2009, a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2013 and an Aspen India Fellow in 2016.
Vishal Talreja
Vishal co-founded Dream a Dream, a charitable trust empowering children and young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish in the 21st century using a creative life skills approach. Vishal is an Ashoka Fellow, an Eisenhower Fellow and a Board Member at PYE Global and Goonj. Vishal was a Founding Director of UnLtd India and has been a Founding member, Steering Committee Member of many other organizations. He is also part of the Informal Working Group on the Future of Education & Skills 2030 project by OECD where he has been a Co-chair and Moderator at various convenings.
Vishal has been recognized as an “Architect of the Future” by the Waldzell Institute in Austria. Vishal believes that if we can re-imagine learning to develop empathy, creative thinking, problem-solving, and collaborative working skills amongst young people, they will be able to overcome adversity and flourish in this fast-changing world.
Manmohan Malhoutra
Secretary-General of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation from 2001 to 2007, ‘Moni’ Malhoutra was formerly Assistant Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and later, a member of the Board of Directors of International IDEA – the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm. Educated in Delhi and Oxford, he was a member of the Indian Administrative Service (1961-1978) and served in the Secretariat of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from 1966 to 1973. He then moved to London to the Commonwealth Secretariat, where he played a leading role in Commonwealth efforts to end apartheid in South Africa.
Utsav Baijal
Utsav Baijal is the Head of India Private Equity and responsible for the firm’s private equity business in the country. He joined Apollo in its New York office in 2008 and has worked actively on private equity, mezzanine and credit investments across the US and Asian markets. In 2012, he helped Apollo establish a joint venture with ICICI Bank and helped raise one of the largest India dedicated funds, AION Capital Partners. Prior to Apollo, Mr. Baijal was with the private equity team at Bain Capital in Boston, where he worked extensively in the consumer and retail sector. He is on the Board of several companies, including IGT solutions, Clix Capital and PlanetCast Media Services Limited. He is an Aspen Institute Fellow and the recipient of the 2018 IIMA Young Alumni Achiever Award.
Akhil Shahani
An MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Akhil Shahani’s twin areas of focus are education and entrepreneurship. His family has been in the education sector for over sixty years, and he continues to fly the flag high. As the Director of the Shahani Group, Mr. Shahani is trying to bring international methods of management education to India through the group’s various initiatives. He believes that a good management education involves not only academic learning, but also developing one’s network, personality and values. Apart from his work with the many educational institutions run by the family, he is also involved with the Kaizen Management Advisors Pvt. Ltd., a Private Equity firm investing in education and also mentors young entrepreneurs in his spare time. He is also the recipient of many awards like the Bharat Shiromani Award, the Bharat Gaurav Award and the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award including mentions in notable educational journals.
Contact
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1st Floor, D Wing,
HDIL Kaledonia
Sahar Road, Andheri East
Mumbai 400 069
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