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Funders Committee

Funders Committee

To facilitate a funding continuum for the energy-livelihood enterprises across various stages of growth, the programme has created a Funders Committee with a wide-variety of debt, equity, and grant funders to gain inputs to grow the sector and to achieve coordinated soft commitments.

 

 

A B Chakravarthy

A B Chakravarthy is a seasoned impact investment professional with over a decade of experience in technologies for emerging markets. In his roles at Agri Newgen Ventures, Menterra & Villgro, he has worked with many early-stage enterprises across AgriTech, CleanTech, EdTech, HealthTech, among others and has played a key role in growing their business and raising follow-on capital. He has served as non-executive director on the board of various companies and advisor to several others, shaping their growth strategy and corporate governance.

A B Chakravarthy

Upaya Social Ventures

India Country Director

Ankita Vashishta

Ankita is an experienced venture capital investor and entrepreneur. She is passionate about entrepreneurship and has worked with startups with a vision to scale across markets. She founded Saha Fund, India's first venture capital fund to invest and promote women entrepreneurship in technology. She is currently working on promoting women’s participation in the economy through value investing and is also interested in  supporting companies which are working towards women’s wellness and mental health space.

Ankita Vashishta

Saha Fund

CEO and Managing Partner

Archana Srivatsan

Archana has over 13 years of experience across management consulting, social development, and impact investing. She works to explore the cusp of private sector innovation and social impact for the foundation’s programs through strategic investments in innovative technology-enabled companies. Before joining the Strategic Investment Fund team, she worked across several of the foundation’s programs in India. Prior to joining the foundation, she spent six years at KPMG, advising CXOs of multinational corporation clients in India.

Archana Srivatsan

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Principal, Strategic Investment Fund

Dheeraj Mutreja

Dheeraj has over a decade of experience in the banking sector. Dheeraj is presently taking care of Rural and Development Banking at Rabobank. Prior to Rabobank, Dheeraj has worked with SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd., Induslnd Bank, Citibank and ICICI bank.

Dheeraj Mutreja

Rabobank

Assistant Vice President

Gaurav Gupta

Ananya Finance is an NBFC that provides lending support to a large section of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and grass-root entities. Gaurav is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years of experience in banking, finance and a clean-tech start-up entrepreneurial venture. He presently works in the capacity of Managing Director at Ananya Finance.

Gaurav Gupta

Ananya Finance

Managing Director

Gouri Shankar Gollapudi

Gouri Shankar has experience of working in the financial services industry, with institutions on repute. His expertise lies in portfolio building & management, fundraising, compliance, inclusive credit, and commercial banking. At present, he is the Managing Director at Maanaveeya Development and Finance. Maanaveeya is an Indian subsidiary of Oikocredit, that provides loans to stimulate sustainable development.

Gouri Shankar Gollapudi

Maanaveeya Development & Finance Pvt Ltd. (OikoCredit, India)

Managing Director 

Hari Rajagopal

Hari Rajagopal is a banker by profession and has a rich experience of 12+ years. He heads Capital Markets & Strategic Initiatives vertical at Samunnati and is responsible for developing access to different types of capital markets for customers in agri value chains, raising funding resources as well as developing strategic partnerships with other like-minded agencies. Prior to Samunnati, Hari had a long stint with Rabobank, the Dutch food & agribusiness bank in various capacities in corporate banking and microfinance.

Hari Rajagopal

Samunnati

Vice President, Capital Markets and Strategic Initiatives

 Karan Kumar

Karan works with the Materials Programme at Laudes Foundation, where he focuses on supporting and driving a transformation towards sustainability in the global material mix of the textile & apparel industry. His experience spans multiple sectors including agriculture and fashion; and his expertise lies at the intersections of sustainability, technology, and innovation for social and environmental good. He is also a member of the Mumbai hub of the Global Shapers Community (World Economic Forum initiative).

Karan Kumar

Laudes Foundation

Programme Officer - Materials

Karthik Chandrasekhar

Karthik actively works to improve the clean technology entrepreneurial ecosystem for India. He started his investment journey with TVS Capital Funds, then at Ventureast and finally Acumen, an impact investment fund, before starting Sangam. He started Sangam to find a new model to provide early-stage support for climate change pioneers. He is also the Chairman of AIC-Sangam Innovation Foundation, India’s first dedicated Cleantech Incubator set up in partnership with the Government of India’s Niti Aayog.

Karthik Chandrasekhar

Sangam Ventures

Founder

K. P. Philip

K. P. Philip has been associated with Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd. (IREDA) for more than 2 decades and has rich experience in the field of renewable energy and energy efficiency. At IREDA, his primary responsibility is to carry out diligence of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects for project financing. He has also handled several capacity-building activities under Technical Assistance extended by various multilateral and bilateral agencies as accompanying measures to their main lines of credit to IREDA.

K. P. Philip

IREDA

Deputy General Manager

Pariphan Uawithya

Mr. Pariphan Uawithya leads the Power & Climate’s initiative in Asia aimed at expanding clean energy infrastructures to drive economic and social development in underserved, low-income communities. In India, he manages a growing portfolio of investments in power companies that plan to build more than 10,000 mini grids. Separately in Myanmar, he leads Smart Power Myanmar, an entity dedicated to support the acceleration of last-mile electrification for 10 million people.

Pariphan Uawithya

The Rockefeller Foundation

Director, Power and Climate

Rama Kannan

Rama presently serves on the boards of two companies as an independent director and also teaches social entrepreneurship. She has been a coach and mentor for over a decade. She has over 20 years of experience in strategy and marketing and has worked in Corporate and Development sectors in the Asia Pacific region. She has served as a mentor for Afghan civil servants through the UN for ten years.

Rama Kannan

Beyond Capital Fund

Coach and Mentor | Board Member

Ratna Mehta

Ratna heads the Wadhwani Catalyst Fund which invests in high quality entrepreneurs with scalable business models and programs, with the overall objective of accelerating economic development by creating livelihoods / jobs. She is a private equity investor with 20 years of experience across growth/ buyout and early investing, consulting and banking. Prior to joining the Catalyst Fund, she has worked with BCG, Everstone Capital, JP Morgan and Arthur Andersen. Ratna is a rank holder CAand has completed all levels of the CFA program.

Ratna Mehta

Wadhwani Catalyst Fund

Executive Vice President

Smita Rakesh

Smita leads the Clean Energy and Climate Action Portfolios at Social Alpha. She has been engaged with the global energy access ecosystem for more than 12 years, contributing across a wide spectrum of interventions in public, private and development sectors. Passionate about catalysing large-scale yet inclusive social change through responsible investments and honest engagement with the primary stakeholders, she is a believer in market-based solutions and a strong advocate of better-contextualized solutions.

Smita Rakesh

Foundation For Innovation & Social Entrepreneurship (Fise), 

Social Alpha Portfolio Manager

 Sreejith Nedumpully

 

Sreejith has over 15 years of diversified professional experience in start-up funding, early-stage incubation, social entrepreneurship and MSME and SME financing. He is currently Head, Cluster Development, Livelihoods at Svakarma Finance and also a Director at ROPE Enterprises. Prior to this he was India Director at Upaya Social Ventures. Before Upaya, he was Co-founder and Managing Director of ROPE Enterprise

Sreejith Nedumpully

Head , Cluster Development - Livelihoods,  

Svakarma Finance Pvt. Ltd

Sunanda Madan

Sunanda has over 13 years of diversified professional experience spanning impact investing, economic development, and investment banking. Currently, she leads the Agriculture Practice for Acumen Fund in India focusing on sourcing, screening and closing high impact investments, developing strategic partnerships with key stakeholders and ecosystem players, and driving thought leadership to amplify Acumen's work in the sector. Prior to Acumen, she worked with TechnoServe India leading projects that focus on design and implementation of business-oriented strategies for poverty alleviation

Sunanda Madan

Acumen

Sector Lead - Agriculture

Sushant Bhatia

Sushant is currently with Caspian Debt, where he leads the deal origination and portfolio strategy for South India. He helps high impact enterprises access customized debt capital, and manages the portfolio of enterprises building sustainable businesses in sectors like Healthcare, Education and CleanTech. He started his professional journey in 2010, and worked for initial 4 years in operations and technology roles. He is always on the lookout for partnerships with entrepreneurs, ventures, investors and incubators that can support growth of the Indian Venture Ecosystem.

Sushant Bhatia

Caspian Debt

Regional Manager

Tanya Kothari

Tanya supports the growth of Shell Foundation's India partners and portfolio and has been leading their gender inclusion work in India for the past 2 years. Shell Foundation supports scalable business solutions creating impact in the access to energy and sustainable mobility sectors across India and Africa. Before joining Shell Foundation, she spent almost three years working in diverse commercial and technical roles within Shell Group.

Tanya Kothari

Shell Foundation

Business Development Advisor,