VISHNU SWAMINATHAN
- Founder President

Vishnu, a lifelong entrepreneur, is our Co-Founder.

He has brought several ideas to life over his professional career – both in the for-profit and non-profit worlds. During the late ’90s, he co-founded two internet technology companies in Singapore. Both the companies were based on ideas that were ahead of their times – Artificial intelligence and Machine learning and another a fin-tech business. One of the companies was acquired in the early 2000s and then he discovered his deep interest in social development.

In the non-profit space, he worked with Ashoka as a Leadership Group Member for over a decade and led multiple teams across South Asia, South East Asia and at the Global office. His work on affordable housing, enabled the creation of over 15,000 homes across India – is now a separate organization called the Indian Housing Federation. Similarly, his work on malnutrition has led to the creation of Nourishing Schools Foundation.

He is passionate about creating large scale social change using hybrid business models.

ARCHANA SINHA
- Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Archana engaged large foundations and corporates to create collaborative initiatives at Ashoka for over 8 years. She co-founded Nourishing Schools while she was at Ashoka. She has been recognised as a contributor to the Yellow Books, published by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), Government of India. These books aim to engage children with topics related to nutrition and food safety.

Before working with Ashoka, she was a management consultant with i3 Consulting, a firm founded by ex-McKinsey employees. She led engagements advising clients from industries such as financial services and e-commerce on business development, strategy and setting up new ventures. She’s been a journalist with The Asian Age and has contributed to online publications such as Your Story and Forbes. She was ranked #15 in YourStory’s list of 100 Digital Influencers of 2020. She has been awarded the Spotlight: Health scholarship by the Aspen Ideas Festival, USA and selected as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence by the SELCO Foundation. She has a Bachelors degree in Economics from Sophia College, Mumbai and a Masters degree in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru, University, New Delhi.

ASHWIN NAIK
- Director

Ashwin is the founder and serves on the board of Vaatsalya Hospitals, an award-winning social enterprise, focused on building and managing a network of hospitals in small towns in India. Vaatsalya is the largest hospital network of its kind in India, bringing affordable healthcare services to more than half a million undeserved customers per year, and is the winner of the Inaugural Porter Prize in India for value-based healthcare. In 2012, Ashwin also helped establish National Association of Social Enterprises in India, a leading industry body comprising of the leading social enterprises in India. Ashwin has been honored as a Young Global Leader (YGL) by World Economic Forum, Young Leader by Asia Society Asia 21, Senior Ashoka Fellow, and Ted India fellow. His passion is Social entrepreneurship, Healthcare access and innovation. Ashwin has a medical degree from Karnataka Medical College, Hubli and a Masters from University of Houston, Texas. In his spare time, you will find him watching movies or collecting random (and mostly useless) historical trivia.

DEEPA AMARNATH
- Associate Director

Deepa has ten years of experience in investment banking and two years of entrepreneurial experience in the food and beverage industry. She manages our partnerships with various social enterprises to expand the coverage of the Nourishing Schools programme. She has also developed content for our toolkit, to engage children as changemakers for their own nutrition.

She is passionate about sustainable agriculture and has been integral in strengthening the link between agriculture, nutrition and climate change in our work. She has a Bachelors and a Masters degree in Commerce from Mt.Carmel College, Bangalore.

KRATIKA JOSHI
- Associate

Kratika specializes in critical analysis as well as creative and critical writing. With experience in working on a variety of design projects, she specialized in the communications field to better understand customers’ needs.

During her college years, she worked as a social media manager for a start-up co-founded by her. She has worked on several research topics in the area of literature. She has a BA in English Research and a minor in Design, with distinction from Shiv Nadar University.

SANA ELAHI
- Associate Director

Sana has three years of clinical and more than five years of public health experience. Before working with Nourishing Schools Foundation, she was a research consultant with Noora Health, an international non-profit organization, working for patient and family caregivers on their education training programs. At Noora Health, she led the evaluation studies in Bangladesh & India and conducted training program evaluations. Besides this, she was awarded an Infosys fellowship and got the opportunity to work with SEWA (Self-employed Women Association) as a Team Lead of the Health Program for two years, where she led the implementation of health-focused activities and monitoring of data in 7 States. Sana has an Unani medicine degree (Delhi University), Masters’s in Public Health (IIPH-Delhi) with a Micromasters in Data, Economics, and Development Policy (MIT).

She enjoys watching and sometimes doing stand-up comedy. She is passionate about exploring new social innovations around children’s health and education.

NAGENDRA CHANDRASHEKAR
- Finance Manager

Nagendra has over 33 years of experience in accounts management and office administration. His key skills are preparing final accounts, income and expenditure statements, receipts and payments statements, balance sheets, and funding & project proposals. He manages interactions with the auditors for the financials and other related matters.

In his previous roles, he has liaised with banks for working capital proposals like packing credit loans, bill discounting facilities, term loans etc. He has also independently handled internal auditing, income tax and sales tax assessments, and matters relating to statutory compliances like income tax, exemptions proposals, FEMA, RBI, VAT, PF, PT, JDGFT, central excise and customs.

AMAL THOMAS
- Associate

Amal specializes in data science. He is a talented problem solver with a passion for analytics and programming, diligence, and a keen eye for detail, attributed to his inquisitive nature.

He has completed multiple projects in machine learning using R and python programming languages. He has a Masters’s Degree in Computer science (Data Science) from Rathnavel Subramaniam College of Arts and Science (Bharathiar University) and a Bachelor’s Degree (Computer science) from Don Bosco College (Calicut University).