Satyam Vyas

Satyam, a distinguished social entrepreneur and visionary, is deeply committed to transforming people's lives and creating positive change on a global scale. With an unwavering focus on sustainable impact, Satyam partners with mission-driven organizations to design and implement innovative strategies that drive significant social transformation. A true pioneer at the intersection of people, planet, and purpose, Satyam is a fervent advocate for impact careers, climate change, policy, gender equity, and technology for good. With over two decades of experience in education and human capital, Satyam has worked with leading non-profits in India, including Pratham, leaving an indelible mark on the social impact landscape. A THNK fellow and a graduate of executive programs in social entrepreneurship and leading successful social programs from the esteemed Stanford Business School and Harvard Kennedy School, Satyam brings a wealth of leadership experience and a vast network of connections from around the world. His profound understanding of the social impact ecosystem makes him an invaluable asset to any organization seeking to drive significant and sustainable change.

board MEMBERS & ADVISORS

Deepak Dogra

Deepak Dogra has 13+ years of experience in the Education sector. He has worked extensively with Pratham, one of India’s top education non-profits, on various programs aimed at improving quality of education and increasing accountability in the sector through government and community involvement. Deepak currently heads Operations at Room to Read, spread across eight states in India. Prior to Room to Read he worked with Global Partnership for Education (GPE) at The World Bank, where he was involved in evaluating education sector plans for Pakistan and Rwanda, creating early grade reading trackers for member countries and wrote extensively on the management and logistics of large scale early grade reading programs and results-based financing of education. Deepak holds a degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and an MBA from Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He was a Fulbright Nehru Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Renu Shah

Renu is the Founder of Shakti - The Empathy Project, an incubation program for women social entrepreneurs in early stages of their projects. She is the co-founder of C3: Collaborate to Create Change, a collaborative model to scale up interventions to improve the learning outcomes in government schools. Previously, Renu led the Changemaker Schools' program for South Asia for Ashoka - Innovators for the Public. Before Ashoka, she founded a grassroots organisation for slum and street children in Kathmandu, Nepal with the aim of integrating these children into mainstream society through education. Before she moved into the development sector, she had a successful career in sales and marketing. She holds a Master degree in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. She has received the Vijaya Award 2015, highest award to an Alumni at Scindia Girls School, Gwalior, John Galbraith Policy Fellow 2014 at Harvard Kennedy School and EpicChange Global Woman 2011.

Siddhartha Shukla

Sid is a corporate and M&A lawyer based in London and specialises in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity, and other aspects of corporate laws. Sid counts some of the leading international and Indian corporates as his clients.

Sid is admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales and as an advocate in India.  He studied at NLU Jodhpur graduating with a bachelors in law and business administration with a distinction. In addition to his day-to-day work, Sid lectures at various renowned universities in the UK and India (including Oxford and NLUs), and he is also the Co-Chair of NOTICED (which is UK's first inter-law firm diversity network focussing on multiculturalism, which comprises 11 top London city based law firms).

Avani Kapur

Avani leads the Accountability Initiative research group at the Centre for Policy Research. She has over 13 years of experience in governance, state capacity and public finance. As part of her work, she has been anchoring the publication of the annual budget brief series analysing the performance of key welfare programmes by the Government of India. She has also led several process and fund tracking surveys on key social sector schemes such as health, nutrition, water, sanitation, and education. She started in 2008 with a vision to strengthen accountability and transparency in governance, which is responsive to citizen needs. She undertakes research on governance, state capacity, accountability and government social welfare schemes and also runs courses for citizens and government. Avani is passionate about data, public finance, fiscal policy, governance, and state capacity.

Barry Kirsch

Barry is Chairman of the BKP Group which is the largest production, post production and content creation company in Dubai. The BKP Group specializes in content creation, high end music composition, sonic branding and video and audio post, with offices and facilities in Dubai and Riyadh KSA. Previously producer, composer and multi-award winner for work in film TV and advertising, Barry is now more focused on business and creative challenges in a new industry landscape. He is the developer of media action group the Big Ball Films, focussing on highlighting work by unsung heroes.

He is an advisory board member at Arthan and responsible for the marketing and branding.

Dax Denneboom

Dax is a business leader who is passionate about combining the right people, business insights and enabling technology to create a sustainable impact. He is very passionate about FoodTech & AgTech. He has more than 20 years of all round commercial and operational experience in e-commerce, retail, omnichannel and FMCG. He is experienced in setting strategies & day-to-day execution, positioning & proposition building, digital transformation, value chain innovation & new business models, managing multiple distribution models, building data-driven-business, cascading alignment models and running a branded business with P&L responsibility. He is an advisory board member at Arthan responsible for the platform/technology products strategy.

Dr. Wilima Wadhwa

Dr. Wilima Wadhwa has been associated with ASER since its inception in 2005 and is the architect of the ASER survey and other primary research studies currently being undertaken. Dr. Wadhwa earned her undergraduate degree, with Honors in Economics from Delhi University, M.A. degrees in Economics from Delhi University and University of California, and her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California. Dr Wadhwa has been published extensively and teaches statistics and econometrics at the University of California (Irvine), and the Indian Statistical Institute (New Delhi). She has also been a member of various government committees. Dr Wadhwa’s other research interests include development and economics of education. She is an advisory board member at Arthan responsible for overall research strategy.

Swarnalekha Shetty

Swarnalekha Shetty manages strategic partnerships as Head of Sales & Distribution - Corporate Life & Pensions for the Middle East in Zurich International. She is experienced in Business Planning, Banking, Sales, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Customer Satisfaction. She is an advisory board member at Arthan responsible for fundraising for the foundation.