About Us

Founder

Meera Shenoy

Meera Shenoy, Founder-CEO, is recognised as a pioneer in market linked skill trainings for rural, tribal and disabled youth. She is one of the few in the country who work both on policy, strategy and implementation of large projects, with a focus on the vulnerable. Her most recent work was supporting the Advisor to the Prime Minister, Ramdorai, in his capacity as Chairman, NSDA. She was also Senior Advisor, UNDP, Youth Skilling where she focussed on integrating rural girls into the Aajeevika skilling scheme of NRLM. She has worked closely with MoRD, NSDC and Ministry of disability to develop skilling guidelines for youth with disability. She worked as the World Banks' only specialist in youth and skilling in their poverty alleviation projects of Rajasthan, Orissa , Bihar and Chhattisgarh. She has written several learning notes on skilling youth for the World Bank, which was circulated globally. Meera Shenoy began her work in skilling as Executive Director of EGMM, the country's first job mission for rural and tribal youth, which she helped set up from scratch for the Andhra Pradesh government in 2004. Today it is recognised as the country's best market linked state government skilling mission. She has won several awards, national and international, for the work.

Anila Mathur

Anila Mathur, Co-Founder, is a professional with around 25 years of cross cultural experience in Banking, Human Resources, Administration & Co-ordination of district & state level activities in the development sector. She has vast experience in the Banking sector. She is a B.Com graduate from Osmania University and holds a Masters degree in Human Resource Management and Finance.

Board of Directors

Gopinath C. S.

Gopinath C. S., a retired banker, worked with Andhra Bank for 24 years in various capacities including secretary to the Board of the Bank, Also worked with HDFC Bank for 17 years and retired in 2012 as Regional Head of the bank managing the branches in Andhra and Chennai. He also set up the ADFC operations in Nellore and Tirupati.

Ravi Kolathur

Ravi Kolathur is a chartered accountant with 30 years work experience. He has worked with MNCs in India, US and the Indian School of Business in senior positions. He has also been an entrepreneur and independent consultant.

Ajay Gandhi

Ajay Gandhi is a Chartered Accountant with 40 years experience. He was Chairman of the Hyderabad branch of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) in 2000. He is a former Vice President of the Andhra Pradesh Tax Bar Association. He is the Founder Trustee of Manthan Foundation, which runs Manthan, one of India’s premier forums for public discourse (www.manthanindia.com). He is also the Festival Director & Trustee of the Hyderabad Literary Trust which holds the Hyderabad Literary Festival (www.hydlitfest.org). He authored a weekly column, Tax & You, in the Deccan Chronicle, the mainline newspaper of Hyderabad for several years, which was very popular with the readers.

Board of Advisors

Mr. Jayesh Ranjan

Mr. Jayesh Ranjan (IAS 1992) Telangana, Principal Secretary of the Industries & Commerce (I&C) and Information Technology (IT).He holds a Masters Degree in Psychology from Delhi University, a degree in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and a Masters in Public Management from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He has also done short courses in the University of Birmingham (on Environmental Policy Analysis), JICA training Institute, Tokyo (on lake remediation), London School of Economics (on Globalization and Leadership), Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (in Public Policy), and Swedish Institute, Stockholm (on Sustainability and CSR). Presently Jayesh Ranjan is the Principal Secretary of the Industries & Commerce (I&C) and Information Technology (IT) Departments of the Telangana government. His assignment involves developing policy frameworks, attracting new investments, identifying opportunities of utilizing IT in various government processes, and promoting digital empowerment of the citizens. Jayesh Ranjan supports many social, cultural and charitable causes, and is on the Boards/Advisory committees of several companies.

Rajsekhar Budithi

He is Principal Secretary, School Education, Government of AP. A Mechanical Engineer from Andhra University (Visakhapatnam), he has a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School of Government (USA) and a PG Diploma in Management (Systems Management) from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. He has worked as CEO of SERP for Government of Andhra Pradesh, India. He has held various positions with the government of Andhra Pradesh, as Commissioner (Civil Supplies), Director of Irrigation, Director of Backward Classes, District Collector of Nellore and Anantapur districts, Project Director of Poverty Alleviation Project, Project Officer of Integrated Tribal Development Agency and State Project Director of Primary Education Programme. He was the team leader with UNICEF in Andhra Pradesh. He was Executive Assistant to Minister of State for Commerce and Power, Government of India. He has two and half decades of experience of working at policy design, programme management and operations of rural development and poverty alleviation programmes in India.

Amala Akkineni

Amala Akkineni is Honorary Director, Annapurna International School of Film and Media (AISFM). She is Chairperson of Blue Cross, Hyderabad, an organisation which works for the welfare of animals and animal rights. She set up Blue Cross from scratch and nurtured it for the last 26 years. Married to the well-known actor, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Amala champions various social causes.

Luis Miranda

Luis Miranda is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). Luis has been involved in setting up IDFC Private Equity in 2002 which has won many awards. He has also worked at HSBC, Citibank, KPMG and Price Waterhouse. Luis is a Director of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA) and was Co-Chairman of the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA). He is also involved with a few not-for-profit education initiatives and advises a few start-ups and early stage

Suchitra Shenoy

Suchitra Shenoy has over a decade experience in social sector. She was the founding member of the Monitor Inclusive Markets team at the Monitor Group, where they examined market-based business models solutions to issues of poverty. She has co-authored a book "Infinite Vision" on the Arvind Eye Care System.

Deenadayalan S.

Deenadayalan S. is the founder of CEO ("Centre for Excellence in Organization") based out of Bangalore and has offices in India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. He is also involved with varied NGO and Social entrepreneurship organizations

Management Team

Sameer Nair

Sameer Nair, is a Senior Management professional with 20+ years of experience in various industries including IT, Training, Education, Facility Management, Retail and Wellness. He has worked 5+ Years in Wellness industry (O2 Spa Salon Pvt Limited) as Business Head handling Pan India business, 5+ years with Education industry (Euro Kids) as Operations Manager South, 5+ Years in IT (Wipro and Samsung) and 3+ years in Training (O2 Skills, VJ Info and ICFAI). He has worked in challenging industries in nascent stage and companies in the start-up mode at various hierarchy levels with successful contribution to organisational growth.

Ramesh Duraikannan

Ramesh Duraikannan, is a Mechanical Engineer with over 25 years of experience in the education sector. He has built a strong network in Africa and he has been instrumental in establishing training institutes of New Horizons CLC in Eastern Africa. He has handled Pan-India sales for Rumi Education a Richard Chandler Corporation Singapore. He worked for Certiport (a Pearson VUE business) in the capacity of "Sales Director - Africa" for the past 5 years. Certiport offers international IT Certification solutions to academic and government institutions. He was responsible for business from Sub-Saharan Africa and Pakistan for Certiport. He has worked closely with Public, Private and Government institutions across East and South Africa. He has also worked with other IT training institutes such as NIIT and Aptech in India.

Silky Sehdev

Silky Sehdev leads the Corporate Partnerships across India for Youth 4 Jobs. She is a Development Professional with over 9 years of experience; specializing in design, management and evaluation of Education, Livelihood and Skill development programs. In the past, she has worked with varied organizations like Labournet, Citizens Alliance, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, etc. in the areas of labor research, skill development consulting, CSR consulting, impact assessment, industry mapping and project management. Silky has experience of working with various national and international organizations in the ecosystem like National Skill Development Corporation, Acumen, Mckinsey Social Initiative, Canara Bank, etc. She worked on the flagship project of NSDC “Hunar Hai toh Kadar Hai” and was responsible for successfully bringing training centers under NSDC ambit in districts of UP and Bihar. She has consulted many organizations to plan their CSR activities in alignment with their strategic objectives.

Vijay Kidambi

Vijay Kidambi is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of rich experience in strategy, competition analysis, operations and supply chain management. He has worked with some of the largest multinationals and Indian companies associated with retail, Agribusiness and rural value chain. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in engineering and a Master’s Degree in management.

Sagar Karuna

Karuna Sagar Radapaka comes with over 17 years of industry & consulting experience in Human Resources Development (People & Culture) having worked with IT, ITES and International Development Organisations.Sagar is specialised in the areas of HR Strategy, Talent Acquisition, Change management, Leadership Development, Organisational Culture. Sagar has strong exposure working with clients in South Asia Pacific Region & North America.Sagar is actively associated with National & International Business Schools and a mentor for the Management students.Did his Master’s in Human Resources Management & Psychology and had computer degree from NIT and also got trained in CISM by the University of Mary Land, USA.