*Names are arranged alphabetically
ADVISORY BOARD
AAKANKSHA GULATI
Aakanksha is a Director at ACT Grants, where she leads the Education Fund and works across the ACT platform to help catalyse change through collectives that bring together startups, NGOs, public and private sector organizations. Prior to ACT, she led strategy and program design as the Chief Program Officer at Teach For India, which included supporting Fellowship recruitment and alumni impact. Prior to TFI Aakanksha worked at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods as an Assistant Vice President, and with Lehman Brothers (later Barclays Capital) as an Analyst on the Securitization and Mortgage Trading Desk. An F.C. Austin Scholar at the Kellogg School of Management where she received her MBA, and a graduate from Duke University, Aakanksha believes that anyone who is interested in cross-disciplinary and innovative approaches to problem-solving ought to consider working in the social impact sector.
PARAG AGARWAL
Parag is the CFO of Dr Reddy's Labs and has 33 years of experience in the corporate sector with Fortune 500 companies from around the world. A qualified Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary, Parag has been championing the cause of out-of-school children for the last decade, amongst other social justice movements. He founded TAP India Foundation in 2014 with the vision of an India where no child is out of school. He is also the founder of Ahimsa Trust and truly believes in dedicating his life to accelerating access to the rights of the vulnerable and underserved.
RUCHITA AGGARWAL
Ruchita is currently heading the new business sales at Google. She is an experienced business leader with a demonstrated impact history in the digital and financial services industry. She is a strong advocate for financial empowerment and inclusion for rural women
TARUN CHERUKURI
Tarun is the Co-founder and CEO of Indus Action (IA), an organization working towards enabling families, sustainable access to legislated rights. Indus Action was TAP India Foundation's first Grantee and since its inception in 2013 has enabled 3.3 Lac students from economically weaker sections and disadvantaged groups access to free education in private unaided schools as mandated by Section 12.1.c of the RTE Act. Indus Action hopes to impact 5 Lac+ underserved citizens over the next 2 years by enabling access to their Rights to Livelihood and Food Security. Prior to leading Indus Action, Tarun served Teach For India's mission since its inception in various roles (Fellow, City Director, National and Delhi Advisory Board). His academic training has been in Chemical Engineering (BITS-Pilani) and Public Administration (Harvard Kennedy School). He has been an Obama Foundation Fellow (2018-20), DRK Foundation Entrepreneur (2015-18), and is currently GLG Social Impact Fellow (2021-23). He is passionate about community organizing and systems leadership for achieving social justice goals at scale.
UJWAL THAKAR
Ujwal Thakar has rich and varied experience spanning the banking, financial industry and the development sector in India. He is considered a doyen of retail banking in India and also one of the leaders of the movement of professionals into the social space in India. Ujwal was the CEO of Pratham, India’s largest NGO in the elementary education space for six years and later the CEO of GiveIndia which is India’s only web based philanthropy platform.
Ujwal has been senior adviser to KPMG and PwC in their BFSI (banking, insurance, and financial services industry) practice, where he brings 28 years of banking Industry experience across nationalized, private sector and foreign banks in India. He has been the country head for the retail banking business in Standard Chartered Bank and BNP Paribas.
Ujwal recently cofounded Ujwal Impact Advisers (UIA) a virtual probono organisation along with seven other senior professionals. UIA currently mentors thirty NGOs to help them accelerate impact.
