Our Team

Our Team Board of Trustees Advisory Board

Our Team

Nidhi Prabha Tewari, CEO
Nidhi has over six years of work experience with various governments and NGOs in the area of disaster management, livelihoods and governance. A Post Graduate from Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), she has worked in Kutch (Gujarat) for four years with Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority, coordinating earthquake rehabilitation efforts. She started RCL with Sandeep Dikshit, MP in Jan 2005. She believes that for addressing chronic poverty and developmental challenges civil society must engage with and support the democratically elected political leadership and help them become part of the solution to these challenges.

She is an Ashoka Fellow.

Anshuman Bapna, Board Member
Anshuman has years of experience building technology companies in both India and Silicon Valley. He was a co-founder of India's first campus startup and currently works for Google in New York. He has an MBA from Stanford University and an undergrad degree from IIT Bombay.

Kushagra Saxena, Director of Policy Connect
Kush is a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Co., co-founder of one of India’s first city-wide tourism portals in 1998. Has a Masters in Management Science from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Gujarat University.

Saurabh Srivastava, Director of Policy Connect
Saurabh is currently working as an AVP with an investment bank and has more than 7 years of experience developing business intelligence systems. Saurabh holds a bachelors degree from IIT Kanpur.

Saif Iqbal, Technology Manager
Saif completed his undegraduate studies from IIT Roorkee and his Masters from Rutgers University. He is currently working for Goldman Sachs in New York and holds a keen interest in the non-profit domain, particularly in education and microfinance.

Dipish Rai, Technology Manager
Dipish is a strategy consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton in NY. He has a Masters from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT-Madras.

Satyarupa Shekhar
Satyarupa is an Erasmus Mundus scholar with a Masters degree in Law and Economics from the University of Rotterdam and a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Hyderabad. She has worked with the World Social Forum 2004 and the Indian School of Business. Satyarupa was a volunteer with DemocracyConnect for over an year before joining the Delhi office full time.

Preeti Sahai
Preeti has around 6 years of working experience, mostly in social development. She has an economics background from Delhi University. She works as a Program Manager with BASIX, a leading livelihood promotion and microfinance organization in India.She has worked on livelihood and microfinance strategies for State Governments, and on poverty alleviation schemes of the Government of India.

Abu Mathen
Abu is a Law graduate from the National Law School, Bangalore.

Nilanjana Mukherjee
Nilanjana has a graduate degree in Social Work from the Tata Institute for Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. She has four years work experience with various organisations

Board of Trustees

Sushma Iyengar (Chairperson)
Sushma began working with women in the villages of Kutch in 1988 and founded KMVS in 1989 as a membership-based organization, of which she is a Member Trustee and Vice President. In 1998, Sushma co-founded Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan, a district level collaboration of voluntary organizations, which coordinated disaster relief and rehabilitation work as well as developmental initiatives. Sushma obtained her B.A. and M.A degrees in English/Comparative Literature from M.S. University, Baroda in 1985, and obtained her Master of Professional Studies in Development Communication from Cornell University in 1988.

Jagdeep S Chhokar
Jagdeep has a PhD in management and organisational behaviour from Louisiana State University (USA), an MBA from Delhi University, Graduate Engineer from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London) and the Institution of Production Engineers (London), and LL.B. from Gujarat University. With a teaching career that has spanned 28 years, Jagdeep has held teaching assignments at Louisiana State University Murdoch University, USA and the Curtin University of Technology in Australia Loyola Marymount University, USA, University of New Orleans, USA, Group Ecole Superieure de Commerce Et de Management (ESCEM) (Campus de Tours), France, and at the International University of Japan (Graduate School of International Management) before retiring from the IIM Ahmedabad from where he retired in 2006.

Balakrishnan Balachandran
Balakrishnan is an architect and planner with over sixteen years of professional and academic experience in architecture and urban planning. Some of his better known achievements are Bhuj town planning post earthquake in January 2001, Surat Inner City Revitalization Plan and Draft Development Plan of Gandhinagar Urban Development Authority. He is currently working as Senior Governance Advisor in the USAID-funded project, Good Urban Governance in South Asia, covering Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia.

Mona Dikshit
Mona has over 15 years of working experience, mostly in rural development. A graduate of IRMA, she currently works with BASIX, a leading livelihood promotion and microfinance organization in India. She has worked on livelihood and microfinance strategies for state Governments, and on poverty alleviation schemes of the Government of India.

Praveen Pardeshi
Currently working as Municipal Commissioner, Pune, Praveen is 1985 IAS batch topper. He has been part of both Latur and Kutch earthquake recovery and has just returned from a five year stint in Geneva with UNDP.

Other Board Members

• Nidhi Prabha Tewari
• Anshuman Bapna

Advisory Board

Dr. Anand Patwardhan
Anand Patwardhan is Executive Director of the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), an autonomous organization in the Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India. Prior to this, he was Professor and Head of the Shailesh J Mehta School of Management at IIT-Bombay. He also holds an adjunct faculty position at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. Anand has a BTech in Electrical Engineering from IIT-Bombay (1987), a MS in Civil Engineering (Environmental Science) (1991) from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy (1993), also from Carnegie Mellon University. He was a Marine Policy and Ocean Management Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1994 – 1995.

Dr. A K Shivakumar
Member, National Advisory Council, A. K. Shiva Kumar is a development economist, founding member of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) and Adviser to UNICEF, India. He is also Visiting Professor at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad and teaches economics and public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Shiv's research has focussed on poverty and human development, social sector analysis, and the impact of development policies on children and women. He has been a regular contributor to UNDP's annual Human Development Reports and National Human Development Reports. Shiv did his Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and his M.A. in Economics from Bangalore University. He also has a Masters in Public Administration and a Ph.D in Political Economy and Government, both from Harvard University.