Speakers | Dasra Philanthropy Forum '22

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Ajaita Shah, Founder & CEO, Frontier Markets 
Ajaita Shah runs Frontier Markets –– an enterprise built to empower and uplift rural women through financial independence. Born and raised in New York, Ajaita returned to India in 2011, and found her calling in understanding rural markets in India, which she realized was a colossally under-serviced market as a whole. Frontier Markets makes the rural marketplace digitally inclusive via networks of digitally savvy women entrepreneurs and the Meri Saheli app, which helps connect rural customers to market solutions across sectors. Till date, they’ve managed to sell 20 million solutions to 1 million rural families through a network of 30,000 women in 5,000 villages across India. Ajaita has been recognized in the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 for 2014, in Fortune India’s 40 Under 40 for 2022, and is an Echoing Green Fellow. 

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Ami Misra, Manager, Dasra 
Ami Misra has worked primarily as a researcher, providing inputs for promoting evidence-based solutions and convergence across development programs, for a decade. At Dasra, her work entails advisory research and knowledge creation, with a focus on gender equity. She has anchored Dasra’s research on migrant and informal workers in the recent past.  Her worldview is rooted in feminism, compassion, and an intuitive optimism. She has an education specializing in women’s studies and social policy. Prior to Dasra, she has worked with governmental and multilateral agencies as well as think tanks. 

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Andrew Kassoy, CEO & Co-Founder, B Lab Global 
​Andrew is Co-Founder of B Lab Global, a non-profit network geared towards transforming economic systems and corporate structures. Since its inception in 2006, Andrew has been able to support over a thousand businesses the world over via policies, tools, and programs that enable meaningful legal change, corporate accountability, and social impact. Prior to founding B Lab, Andrew held various positions in Private Equity – Partner at MSD Real Estate Capital, Managing Director at Credit Suisse First , and Co-Founder of DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners. He serves as Board Member of Echoing Green’s G8 Social Impact Investing Task Force, and is among the ‘Forbes Impact 30’ of leading social entrepreneurs.

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Anjali Kaur, Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Asia, USAID 
​Anjali Kaur is an international development professional with comprehensive experience at the field, country, and global levels with evidence-based, integrated global health programs. Before joining USAID, Anjali was the Senior Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation leading the global policy and advocacy strategies for the HIV and TB programs. She has also been the Senior Director of Asia Pacific for Malaria No More where she established the India Office and expanded the organization’s work across the region, engaging with governments, private sector, civil society, and media. Anjali was also with UNICEF’s Polio Programme, as well as the World Bank and UNFPA. She is a Fulbright Scholar and received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins University.

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Anne Lindsay-Makepeace , Makepeace-Jotwani Charitable Trust
Anne Makepeace has been involved in a variety of philanthropic efforts throughout her time living internationally. She has been involved in Tokyo with Women’s Shelters, with Dasra and as a UK Ambassador for the Mumbai-based Magic Bus, which through sport development, focuses on improved outcomes. Anne has also been on the UK Support Foundation of the Asian University for Women (AUW) in Chittagong, Bangladesh since 2007. In addition, she is a mentor for AUW alumni during their graduate studies in the UK.

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Aparna Hegde, Founder, Armman
Dr. Aparna Hegde is a Stanford and Cleveland Clinic trained, internationally renowned Urogynecologist, and the founder of the NGO ARMMAN, which creates scalable health based programs to impact maternal and child health in 19 states of  India (reach: 28 million women and their children and 252,000 health workers). Dr. Hegde is an Associate Professor (Hon.) and Head of the upcoming Department of Urogynecology at Cama Hospital (Mumbai), one of India’s first University-based Centers of Excellence in the field with a fellowship program. Dr. Hegde is an accomplished researcher, an NIH grantee, and a pioneer in 2D/3D pelvic floor ultrasound. She is the Chair of FIUGA, the foundation arm of IUGA (International Urogynecology Association), and the Chair of the IUGA Publications Committee. She was featured at number 15 on the Fortune List of World’s 50 Greatest Leaders of 2021, was Skoll awardee (2020), TED Fellow (2020), senior Ashoka Fellow (2020) and was awarded the Women Transforming India award by Niti Aayog (2022).

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Arnav Kapur, Global Lead, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - Philanthropic Partnerships
Arnav leads and manages Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Philanthropic Partnerships portfolio globally, with a focus on Asia, Middle East, and Africa. His work is aimed at strengthening the philanthropic ecosystem and partnering with governments, family offices/ foundations and corporates to have impact at scale across priority areas and allied areas of the foundation. He previously worked with the Foundation’s Policy & Poverty Alleviation and Strategy Planning and Management Team, where he helped develop the foundation’s agriculture and policy strategy and led a state-wide primary healthcare transformation program. Prior to joining the foundation in July 2013, he was a Consultant at Deloitte Consulting, where he advised senior clients across sectors on strategy, financial planning, and supply chain management. He holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi, India, where he graduated in the top 10% of his class. He also holds a Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP) certification from APICS, USA.

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Deval Sanghavi, Partner & Co-Founder, Dasra  
Deval Sanghavi co-founded Dasra in 1999. He leads Dasra’s strategic philanthropy efforts, and provides foreign and domestic philanthropists with grant-making strategies for the social sector – keeping empathy and inclusion at the core. Since 1999, he has helped channel over USD 100 million towards the Indian social sector; incubated and launched the Dasra Philanthropy Forum and Dasra Philanthropy Week; and initiated the Dasra Giving Circle, one of India’s largest collaborative giving platforms. Deval has 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. 

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Divya Varma, Director, Centre for Migration and Labour Solutions, Aajeevika Bureau
Divya is a Director within the Centre for Migration and Labour Solutions, the team that anchors knowledge and policy work within Aajeevika Bureau - an organization immersed in building equity and dignity for labouring communities in India. Divya leads Aajeevika Bureau’s policy and partnerships work, engaging with a range of stakeholders, from industry to government.  Right from establishing and managing Aajeevika’s Migrant Resource Centres at the grassroots, Divya has over 17 years of experience in policy analysis, advocacy and research, and non-profit strategy, management and fund-raising. A Fulbright Scholar, Divya holds a degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a Postgraduate Diploma from the Institute of Rural Management. 

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Eric Kostegan, Managing Director, Philanthropy, Climate Leadership Initiative 
Eric Kostegan works closely with philanthropists to foster interest and commitment towards mitigating the effects of climate change through the Climate Leadership Initiative. With over 20 years of experience within spaces of climate, healthcare, and medicine, Eric has developed and led programs in fundraising and international relations geared towards those sectors. He’s supported the Mount Sinai Health System to elevate strategic support for innovative programs and collaborative partnerships worldwide and served as Senior Director of Global Initiatives at Massachusetts General Hospital, leading resource and partnership development efforts, identifying and cultivating international and U.S.-based investors and philanthropists, corporate and foundation funders, government leaders, and program partners in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America.

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Fanta Toure-Puri, Inaugural Director, Girls First Fund
Fanta is the inaugural director of the Girls First Fund, working closely with funders, key stakeholders, and the team at Geneva Global to provide leadership and set a strategic vision for the fund. Her thinking and the collaborative approach that she promotes in her work were shaped by her experience working in humanitarian relief at the grassroots level early in her career, and subsequently for a US-based grassroots grant-maker. Prior to joining the Girls First Fund, Fanta worked at the World bank in the Human development department. She managed loans and grants provided to government clients to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate social protection policies and programs. Her work focused on productive social safety nets (cash-based interventions to reduce poverty and improve human development outcomes), social assistance delivery systems youth employment, early childhood development, livelihood support, and post-conflict stabilization. She holds a MA in International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University and a BA in International and Public Relations from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

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Gaurav Gupta, Partner & Asia Director, Dalberg
Gaurav is a Partner and the Asia Director at Dalberg Advisors. He founded Dalberg’s first Asia office in Mumbai, later expanding it to Delhi, Singapore, and other cities in SE Asia and Australia. Gaurav supports global development institutions, governments, corporations and civil society towards achieving their Sustainable Development Goals. He globally heads Dalberg’s Impact Measurement and Climate & Energy practice, and has founded numerous social enterprises including an eco-tourism lodge, an organic cotton fashion business, a sustainability focused online travel-portal and an organic tea and wildlife estate.  He also provides founding investments to companies involved in personal Carbon tracking (USA); satellite-based pollution tracking (India); solar rooftop for retail households (India); recycling of waste products (Africa). Gaurav holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford, an MA in International and Development Economics from Yale University, and has been a Fairfax Scholar at the United World College of Hong Kong. Outside of Dalberg, Gaurav sits on the Board of Educate Girls, one of India’s largest NGOs focused on girl education and empowerment.

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Jeroo Billimoria, Co-Founder, Catalyst 2030 
Jeroo Billimoria is the founder of several innovative and award-winning NGOs, with over twenty years’ experience running systems change organizations as a Skoll Awardee and Ashoka and Schwab Fellow. Among her previous organizations are Child and Youth Finance International, Aflatoun International, Childline India and Child Helpline International, which have helped enable the financial inclusion and protection of children and youth in more than 180 countries. Jeroo is now founder of One Family Foundation, which incubates social innovations, helps them scale, and is currently anchoring Catalyst 2030 – a global network working to accelerate progress towards the SDGs through radical and transformative social innovation at the country level. ​

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Kathy A. Seabrook, Founder & CEO, Global Solutions, Inc. 
​Kathy A. Seabrook is the founder and CEO of Global Solutions, Inc. and helps companies structure sustainable business strategies in the environmental safety and health risks sphere. Having wide-ranging sector expertise in global environmental, health and safety (EHS) management, Kathy has donned several roles as a management consultant, international keynote speaker, strategic planning facilitator, leadership coach and published author, and is a recognized ESH expert across USA, UK and Europe. Her clients range from multinationals to domestic companies seeking to manage their environmental safety and health risks. Workers’ safety is central to her practice – as she assists her clients with culture change, global EHS strategies, policies, corporate standards, risk assessment and audit processes to support that change. She is also the ambassador and the Co-Chair for the Capitals Coalition Human Capital in “Valuing Human Capital in Occupational Health and Safety” Group. 

Liz Diebold, Managing Director, Skoll Foundation  
Liz is the Managing Director of Portfolio and Investments at the Skoll Foundation, where she leads the art and science of a responsible and equitable investment practice for social change to advance solutions for critical development challenges. Her work is focused on developing markets, digital financial inclusion, fund structuring, and supply chain investments facilitation for small local firms and multinational corporations. Prior to joining Skoll Foundation, Liz held positions with USAID, the World Economic Forum, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and OPIC. Having wide-ranging regional expertise on Asia, the Americas, and Africa, Liz holds tremendous knowledge about responsible supply chains, smallholder productivity, agriculture, education, economic opportunity, and human rights.
 

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Maleiya Porter Jones, Communications Specialist, Energy
Maleiya Porter-Jones is a communications specialist with nearly ten years of experience in digital storytelling and social media messaging. She is a pleasure advocate and is passionate about normalizing sexual health awareness and communication about sexual health within the Black community, specifically Black women and college students. Maleiya has a Master’s degree in strategic communications and has used her expertise to develop campaigns to increase awareness about sexual health since 2017. 

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Marilia Bezerra, Senior Advisor to the Executive Director, Synergos 
Marilia has served as a Co-Executive Director of Synergos, where she also led the organization’s Global Philanthropist Circle to direct family philanthropy and social investments towards mitigating social issues in geographies globally. Her work is strongly influenced by gender frameworks, be it as founding member of CARE Enterprises Inc. undertaking impact investment for gender justice, or at Breakthrough – a media, arts, and culture initiative for the transformation of gender norms. Marilia’s founded the philanthropic consulting firm Aldeia Works, led the Clinton Global Initiative as Director of Commitments, and managed organizations like Purpose.com and AEA Consulting. Of her most notable work in inclusivity is the Andanças Art School, which she founded to serve the most and the least privileged communities in her native Fortaleza.

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Maya Patel, Executive Chair, Tarsadia Foundation 
Maya Patel is the Executive Chair of the Tarsadia Foundation, leading the development of its vision, programs & partnerships in the philanthropy community. Maya is actively engaged with local and international partners in steering and guiding change to create impact. Maya serves on the board of several organizations including Cal State Fullerton Foundation and Sage Hill School. Previously, she held multiple leadership positions at Tarsadia Hotels, a privately-owned hotel investment, development, and management company.

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Mona Sinha, CEO & Founder, Insight Circle Fund
Mona is CEO and Founder of the Insight Circle Fund which uplifts women’s leadership and centres marginalized communities. She is the Board Chair of Women Moving Millions, the ERA Fund for Women’s Equality, and an Executive Producer of Disclosure, a ground breaking documentary film on trans representation. With a focus on governance, strategy and sustainability, Mona serves on several non-profit boards She is a trustee emerita of Smith College, where she was Vice Chair and led the $486MM Women for the World capital campaign, as well as their transgender admissions policy. Among her many accolades is the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which she received in 2015. She has a BA in Economics from Smith College and an MBA in Finance/ Marketing from Columbia University.

Neelam Chhiber, Co-Founder, Industree 
Neelam Chhiber is the Co-founder of Industree. For the past three decades, she has been working on the regenerative economic transformation of India’s most vulnerable women by helping them unleash their abilities to build self-owned collective enterprises, while leveraging economies of scale. A holistic ecosystem built on digital and financial services enables them to use design, technical, marketing, and management solutions to bridge the urban-rural divide. Neelam and her team have already impacted 500,000 lives and ensured cumulative market access of over 58M USD, with a clear focus on Equity, Gender and Climate. She has received the NITI Aayog’s Women Transforming India Awards (2021). She is also: 75 Women in STEAM by Red Dot Foundation (2021), Economic Times Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India, (2020), L’Oreal Paris Femina Women Award (2012) for Social Impact, and the Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year, India (2011). 

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Nonette Royo, Executive Director, Tenure Facility 
Nonette Royo is a lawyer-practitioner, and a specialist in indigenous peoples, natural resources, and land rights. She is the first executive director of the Tenure Facility, an organization focused on securing land and forest rights for indigenous peoples and local communities. Prior to that, she led the Samdhana Institute in Southeast Asia. For decades, she has been pioneering environmental and social justice across Southeast Asia: a journey that continues at The Tenure Facility. Her work in Indonesia, Philippines, South East Asia and Pacific regions, spans for over 25 years. She has set up several non-governmental organisations focusing on defending and strengthening indigenous peoples’ and women’s legal rights and has helped design and implement funding portfolios for local communities. 

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Raj Gilda, Co-Founder, Lend A Hand India
Raj Gilda is a banker turned social entrepreneur and co-founder of Lend-A-Hand India - and organization focused on the mainstreaming of vocational education in secondary schools covering over 1 million students. Recently, Lend A Hand India facilitated an innovative internship program for more than 10,000 high school students interning with small and micro enterprises as a part school of the curriculum. Raj has worked in India, the UK and USA - including Citibank and Deloitte Consulting in New York. He was awarded the Chevening Fellowship by the UK Government at the London School of Economics, and has an MBA from University of Texas, Austin.

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Safeena Husain, Founder and Board Member, Educate Girls
Safeena is the Founder and Board Member of Educate Girls (EG), an Indian non-profit working towards empowering communities for girls’ education in some of the hardest-to-reach villages. Under Safeena’s guidance, EG has enrolled over 1.1 million girls to date, impacting over 15.5 million beneficiaries. A London School of Economics graduate, Safeena has worked extensively with underserved communities in South America, Africa, and Asia, before returning to India. Her efforts to bridge the gender gap in education in India have been instrumental in EG achieving a major global milestone – the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education. She has also been instrumental in EG becoming the first Audacious project in Asia, a first-of-its-kind coalition that surfaces and funds critical projects with the potential to create global change.

Sapphira Goradia, Executive Director, Vijay and Marie Goradia Foundation 
Sapphira Goradia is the Executive Director of the Vijay and Marie Goradia Foundation. As Executive Director, Sapphira leads the Foundation’s efforts to improve health and educational outcomes in India through the support of innovative, measurable and scalable initiatives. Prior to assuming her role at The Goradia Foundation, Sapphira worked for a number of NGOs focused on the prevention and treatment of both acute and chronic diseases, including UNAIDS and Population Services International. She holds a BA from Pomona College and a Masters of Public Health from The George Washington University. Sapphira serves on the advisory board of Pratham USA and the board of directors of the global health NGO Antara International. She also serves on the board of directors of Dasra, Women Moving Millions, and TPW. 

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Shivani Tarsadia, Impact & Marketing, Tarsadia Foundation 
Shivani Tarsadia is an Impact & Marketing Associate at Tarsadia Foundation, and is part of the core team that reviews grant proposals from various charitable initiatives, and allocates funds to those charities that best fit the Foundation’s mission. Shivani actively represents Tarsadia Foundation in local community service activities, as well as during annual global service trips. Shivani has received an MS in Social Entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California, and a BA in Strategic and Corporate Communication from Chapman University.

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Shrutika Jadhav, Associate Director, Dasra 
Shrutika is an Associate Director at Dasra. She comes with over 13 years of experience in building non-profits, fostering partnerships and collaboratives. Shrutika began her career with one of India’s largest insurance companies, where she played a critical role in scaling business operations. After this short stint, she switched careers to become a teacher in one of India’s most disadvantaged communities. From then on, Shrutika continues to be a strong advocate for excellent education as a key lever for change, and the role of collaborative action in meeting key outcomes. Her go to mantra is: “Individual excellence creates change but combined efforts create magic”. Shrutika was awarded the prestigious Li Ka Shing scholarship for her Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore where she specialized in Social Policy. 

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Sonal Kapoor, Founder, Protsahan India Foundation
Sonal Kapoor is a Founder and Board Member of Protsahan India Foundation - an organization based in New Delhi that enables growth journeys for trauma impacted children & adolescent girls to help them reach their potential. She is an Ashoka Fellow & World Bank Fellow, having served as Member, Expert Committee on Anti-Child Trafficking (Delhi Commission of Women). Sonal also engages with policymakers on the intersections of child rights law and child psychology to birth sustainable systems change in child protective services. Protsahan, under her leadership, has rescued over 1148 girls from violence and abuse and reaches out to 81,000 adolescent girls in impoverished slums by ensuring robust social protection linkages to strengthen their families so that these girls don’t end up institutionalized in shelter homes.

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Sumitra Aswani, Executive Director, Ishk Tolaram Foundation & Sustainability Lead, Tolaram 
​Sumitra is a fourth-generation member of Tolaram and Ishk Tolaram Foundation, a 5-year-old philanthropic organization that provides access to quality education, employment, and healthcare to underserved individuals in Singapore, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Through these roles and various voluntary engagements over the years, Sumitra has championed progressive philanthropy and responsible stewardship of all assets, from investment portfolios to operating businesses. In the past, Sumitra practised clinical medicine and healthcare policy in Singapore, with an interest in family and community medicine. She holds an M.B.B.S from the National University of Singapore and a Master of Studies in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge.