Our People

Royston joined Grameen Capital in 2007 to launch the organization as CEO. He currently oversees all aspects of operations in India. Grameen Capital is a collaboration between Grameen Foundation USA, IFMR Trust and Citigroup, is a first of its kind social business enabling Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) develop wider access to the capital markets. Grameen Capital is part of the global Grameen family of companies, the flagship of which is the Nobel Prize-winning Grameen Bank founded by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.

In his earlier assignment, as a Senior Vice President with HSBC, Royston was instrumental in setting up and heading HSBC’s Microfinance & Priority Sector business. Prior to that, he was the head of HSBC’s SME Business.

Before joining HSBC, Royston worked in Citibank India for over 8 years in various assignments both across the Consumer Bank as well as the Corporate Bank.

He serves on many boards and advisory bodies, including Sa-Dhan, Grameen Foundation, FICCI Financial Inclusion Committee, the CII National Committee on NBFC’s, the United Nations Microfinance Resource Group and the Indian Impact Investors Executive Council. He has been invited to address various programs, in India and globally, promoting microfinance as a sustainable tool to eradicate poverty.

The London-based Finance Monthly publication named Royston in their 2013 Global CEO Award Winners list as one of the Top 4 CEOs in Asia, and Top 2 in India, the other one being Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Royston has done his Masters in Management Studies from the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

Debopama manages the Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) business for Citi in India, which serves Citi’s Corporate, Institutional Mid-Market clients across India, providing them with Cash Management, Trade Finance and Working capital efficiency solutions. She has been with Citi for over 19 years, and has worked in a number of different areas of the Institutional Clients Group.

She started her career as part of the India project team working on the pilot study of the proposed mid-market and SME business in 8 countries for Citi. She then moved on to various roles in Trade Finance, Cash Management and Securities Services, all part of Citi Transaction Services. Prior to taking over as TTS Head, she was Business Head for the Securities and Fund Services business for five years.

Debopama has been closely associated with market development initiatives in the country across payments and securities. She serves on the Board of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that acts as a hub for all electronic payment systems in India, and is a member of the FICCI Capital Markets Committee since 2013. She has also served on the business advisory committee of CDSL, one of the Central Depositories in India, and on SEBI’s Secondary Market Advisory Committee (SMAC). She is a regular public speaker and panelist at industry forums.

Debopama holds a Master’s Degree in Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), University of Mumbai and a Bachelor’s Degree from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.

Vineetha is one of the founding partners of Samvad Partners. Vineetha has extensive experience in private equity investments, investment funds, micro finance, project and corporate finance, projects, cross- border and domestic M&A, corporate governance, domestic and cross border anti-corruption statutes and ethics

Vineetha has been involved in advising a diverse range of market participants involved in the microfinance sector, including banks, MFIs (whether organized as non-banking financial institutions or otherwise), donors, offshore and onshore funds, investors, investment banks and advisors. She has also been involved in the setting up of MFIs, and structuring products and investments in the microfinance sector.

Vineetha holds a B.A.LLB (Hons.) from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. She completed the Infrastructure in a Market Economy Program at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. She began her career at ICICI Bank Limited, Mumbai, in 1998. Since 2002 till 2012 she has been with AZB & Partners.

Christopher A. Tan is a principal at Bridge, an investment company that takes equity in rural banks in order to increase lending to farmers and small businesses in the Philippines.

He has 19 years of experience in various aspects of economic development, having worked for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and ShoreBank Advisory Services in the US, and Saligan in the Philippines.
Prior to joining Bridge, he served as Grameen Foundation’s Regional CEO for Asia, overseeing its work in India, the Philippines, Indonesia and China. He holds an MPP from the University of Chicago, and a JD and a BA in Philosophy from the Ateneo de Manila University.

Prabhat Labh is an international development expert with over two decades of experience in leading programs and initiatives across Asia, Africa and North America. Prabhat brings deep domain knowledge in financial inclusion, enterprise development and livelihoods sectors. Driven by the core values of equity, diversity, empathy, respect and integrity, Prabhat has been focused on understanding the complex lives of low income segments people and challenges and barriers faced by them. He has used these insights to find effective and scalable solutions to address these barriers.

Prior to his move to Grameen Foundation, Prabhat designed and led the portfolio of programs focused on access to savings services for low income populations at the MasterCard Foundation, Canada. Combining insights from diverse fields of sociology, behavioural economics and technology into one coherent strategy to address intractable challenges in the financial inclusion space, this portfolio has successfully expanded access to savings services for millions of people across seventeen countries in Africa.
Earlier, Prabhat was the Senior Technical Advisor for CARE USA’s pan- Africa microfinance initiative ‘Access Africa’, where he provided technical assistance to over a dozen country programs across Asia and Africa. Prior to CARE, Prabhat served on the faculty of Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, where he focused on development of youth-led micro enterprises and rural industries.

Prabhat is a Post Graduate from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and holds a Bachelor’s Degree with Honours in Statistics. Prabhat has undergone several specialized courses at institutions such as Harvard Business School, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern New Hampshire, International Training Centre of the ILO, Administrative Staff College of India and XLRI. He also serves on a number of advisory and investment committees, and is a regular speaker at global conferences.

Some of Prabhat’s leisure pursuits include reading, travelling, camping, photography, running, playing Volleyball and Badminton.

Areas of Expertise: Program and Project Management, Operations Management, Strategic Planning and Budgeting, Business Processes, Human Capital Practices and Learning and Organizational Development

Dhara brings over 15 years of experience in Program and Project Management, Operations Management, Strategic Planning and Budgeting, Evaluations and Monitoring, and Consulting on Business Processes, Operations Management and Human Capital Practices with the Financial Services and Development sectors. In her current role as Head – Strategy & Operations at Grameen Foundation, she is responsible for managing the People Solutions, Client Level Insights and Bankers without Borders programs and for strategizing and streamlining business processes across internal functions.

As part of her strategic responsibilities, Dhara is responsible for developing a three to five year strategy and implementation roadmap for Grameen Foundation’s programs to create sustainable, profitable lines of business, and streamlining the business development, budgeting, monitoring and reporting processes across these programs. As part of her operational responsibilities, Dhara is responsible for strengthening systems and processes for support functions including Finance & Accounting, Governance, Human Resources and Legal and for working with the CEO and Board to develop insightful analysis on Grameen Foundation’s financial status and growth plans.

Prior to joining Grameen Foundation, Dhara has worked with Accion International and Swadhaar FinServe within the microfinance sector. Dhara has also worked with financial institutions like Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank and erstwhile ANZ Grindlays Bank in India where she has undertaken diverse assignments in areas of Operations Management, Process Compliance, Project Management, Service Quality and Learning and Development. Dhara has a Masters degree in Human Resource Management and Commerce and Bachelors degree in Business Administration.

Areas of Expertise: Fundraising, Client Relations, Business Development, Bid Management, Proposal Development

Ankush has more than eight years of experience in Financial Inclusion and News Media. He started his career as a desk journalist and worked for over five years with leading media houses such as The Indian Express and Zee News. He then went on to pursue his post-graduation in rural management. Post MBA, he started working with NABARD Financial Services (NABFINS) as Senior Manager and looked after the operations in six districts spread across the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. He also facilitated in setting up a regional office for NABFINS in Pune (Maharashtra). Ankush next moved to MicroSave, a reputed financial inclusion consultancy firm headquartered in Lucknow. At MicroSave, he worked as a consultant in the DFS-G2P domain before moving to the business development domain, where he developed proposals and managed high-value bids for several institutional donors. Ankush was briefly associated with a small agriculture consultancy immediately before joining Grameen Foundation as Manager, Institutional Relations. He holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from Institute of Rural Management, Anand (2011- 2013).

Ankush is passionate about travelling, and enjoys reading and writing as well.

Areas of Expertise: Content Development, Public Affairs, Crisis Communication, Strategic Communications, Marketing Communications, Business Development, Digital, Public Relations

Gopika has over six years of Public Relations experience across sectors spanning technology, aviation, education, consumer, development, hospitality, corporate, with an endeavor to operate on a global scale, using communications as a force for positive change. She has worked extensively on the conceptualization and implementation of communication strategies for Microsoft India, South Africa High Commission, United Technologies Ltd., The Oberoi Group among others. As part of a company scholarship, Gopika was based in Sydney for three months, working on digital campaigns and new business development. She has briefly interned with the Communications Unit of UNDP in New Delhi and with an Audio Visual firm in Washington DC, where she mostly assisted with development organizations.

In the past, Gopika has worked with global PR firms like Weber Shandwick, H+K Strategies, MSLGROUP. She briefly worked with Alibaba Group before joining Grameen Foundation.

Gopika has a Bachelors in History from Delhi University and a Masters in Business Administration from Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication, Pune. She was awarded a Ford Motor Company scholarship to pursue a course on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals in Washington DC for three months.

She is an avid reader, traveler, dancer, yoga practitioner and loves to explore different cultures, art, theatre and languages.

Areas of Expertise: Strategic Planning & Execution, Business Process Management, Monitoring and Evaluation, Project Management, Product & Channel Management and ICT for Development

Gaurav Chakraverty works as Senior Project Manager, Digital Financial Services at Grameen Foundation.Gaurav brings in rich experience of 15 years in the fields of ICT for Development, Banking, Insurance & Financial Services, Rural BPOs/KPOs, Service Delivery, Project Management, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

Prior to working with Grameen Foundation, he has worked with RuralShores as National Program Manager, leading the Financial Inclusion and Department of Post projects. Earlier he was the Zonal Head for North and North-East at FINO Paytech Ltd.

Gaurav has worked as Associate Fellow at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), leading the ICT for Development initiative of the organisation and spearheaded the CSP network in Drishtee Development and Communications Limited. In his early years, he has worked for Metlife, OmniInfotech and Castrol India.

Gaurav has a proven track record of successfully leading teams towards achieving organizational objectives in rapidly changing environments. He has widely travelled throughout the country and holds North- East India particularly close to his heart. Gaurav has a Bachelors degree in Commerce from Calcutta University and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing.

Areas of Expertise: Sales, Sales Training, Telecommunications, Marketing, Project Management, Administration, Partnership building

Rajesh Sinha has joined Grameen Foundation as Project Manager, Mobile Financial Services. In his current position, Rajesh manages Grameen Foundation’s Mobile Financial Services projects, enabling financial inclusion through sustainable, scalable partnerships between mobile money operators and microfinance institutions. Rajesh looks after all aspects of partnership management, client relations, strategy development, budgeting and stakeholder engagement for these projects.

Rajesh brings with him over 9 years of experience in sales, sales training and project implementation.

Prior to working for Grameen Foundation, he worked with Eko India Financial Services as a Partner Service Leader for its Technology Service Provider (TSP) business, where he designed and implemented a common operational model for the Bank, Business Correspondent (BC) and TSP, ensuring operational excellence through multi-level training and ongoing monitoring. He also trained and provided ongoing support to BC partners to ensure smooth flow of product information and adherence to processes, policies and compliance guidelines. Rajesh was also responsible for co-ordinating with the banking partner to develop their business plan and marketing collateral, and oversee on-ground activities.

Prior to Eko, Rajesh has held managerial positions in private sector companies such as Centum Learning Ltd. ( a Bharti enterprise), where he held overall training responsibility at a zonal level, and at Reliance Telecom and Khaitan Electrical Ltd., where was directly responsible for achieving significant revenue growth within regional markets. Rajesh lives in Patna and holds a Masters’ degree in Business Administration.

He is a qualified ICT Professional with more than 8 Years of experience in areas of Digital Financial Services, Payment Gateway Operations and Kiosk Banking Technology. His Expertise lies in Rural Field Operations, Reconciliation and Settlement and Project Management Operations. He has been involved in starting and developing business operations from scratch and performing multiple roles. Besides this he has an excellent exposure to geography and demography of North India with proven track record of Channel Development, Maintaining Relationships, Increasing Revenues, Streamlining Work-flows & providing quality Customer Service.

Prior to joining GFI he was working with YES bank Ltd in Digital Banking vertical and looking after Payment Gateway support for entire North and East India. He has also worked with organizations like PayU India, FINO PayTech Ltd. and ICICI Bank Ltd in different Capacities.

Neeraj is B.Tech in Information Technology from U.P. Technical University and holds an MBA from National Institute of Cooperative Management, Pune.

Areas of Expertise: Micro Finance, Digital Financial Services, Consulting, Product Development, Process Reengineering, Institutional Assessments, Project Management, Strategic Planning, and Proposal Writing.

Raunak works as Project Manager, Mobile Financial Services, at Grameen Foundation. In his current position, Raunak manages projects aimed at enabling financial inclusion through innovative digital channels. He looks after all aspects of partnership management, client relations, strategy development, budgeting, and stakeholder engagement for these projects.

Raunak has almost 6 years of experience in developing strategies to expand access to finance for the low income segments and advising financial institutions to implement an innovative and cost effective technology-enabled delivery channel to offer financial services in developing markets. Raunak gained this experience through his work with MicroSave, a financial inclusion consulting firm, where he worked both directly and indirectly with key donors such as UNCDF, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Department of Foreign Affairs (Australia), IFC, Opportunity International, ADB and Omidyar Network. His international experience in the least-developed and emerging market economies includes work in Cambodia, Fiji, India, Kenya, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, Solomon Islands, Tanzania, and Timor-Leste. Raunak also worked at Spandana Slow income segmentsthy Financial Limited (MFI), where he was responsible for managing the microfinance operations of the company in the division (8-12 districts)- portfolio of over $8.3 million USD, which was spread across 32 branches.

Raunak holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand, India and a Bachelors in Commerce from Banaras Hindu University, India. He is fluent in English and Hindi.

Priya has around 6 years of experience as a development professional. She has worked with FINO Paytech Ltd, Ratan Tata Trust and Ecokargha where she worked on financial literacy projects for various National and International Organisations like IFC, Microfinance Opportunities, NABARD and UNDP. At FINO, She has also worked as a Product Manager lending team for Union Bank of India and IDBI. Her experience at Tata Trust has given her exposure in management of grants for various livelihood and microfinance projects. She has also participated for research work conducted by Ecokargha about Impact Assessment of Handloom workers in Bhagalpur. Her expertise lies in content development, product management, donor management, training and coordination.She has completed her Bachelors in Commerce from Lucknow University and holds Post Graduation degree from Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Areas of Expertise: Recruitment, Engagement, Training, HR services

Shivanjali brings with her 11 years of core functional experience working as a Human Resources professional with companies such as IBM Daksh, Reliance Retail Ltd, Elance Consultancy Group, and McDonalds India. At McDonalds India, Shivanjali was part of a three member team that handled the HR responsibilities of 135 restaurants across North and East India. Her core areas of expertise involve designing and implementing training programs and conceptualizing employee engagement activities.

Shivanjali has been associated with Grameen Foundation for the last two years, working as a facilitator and content development expert for various leadership and management development programs. Apart from working with the Grameen Foundation, she also spends her time conducting learning sessions for Chartered Accountant students at ICAI, and management sessions for various business schools.

Shivanjali is a Business Administration graduate from CMTS, Lucknow, and holds a PGDM from the Integrated Academy of Management and Technology.

Based in Gurgaon, Purna joined the BwB team at Grameen Foundation in September 2016. She grew up and studied in Kolkata, where she pursued under-graduation in Economics and post-graduation in Human Rights and Social Anthropology, both from the University of Calcutta.

Purna had the longest professional engagement with Sanlaap, an NGO based in West Bengal, where she worked closely with survivors of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. She pioneered the organisation’s work on capacity development of law enforcement authorities and government labour officials in the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Delhi. Purna also worked closely with other national and international NGOs like UNODC-ROSA (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, South Asian Regional Office), ECPAT International, UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) India, Change Mantras, Sanjog India, Pravah et al. Her work primarily focussed on undertaking programme design and evaluation assignments, gender based research and reviews, training curriculum development and facilitation.

Over the years of working in the sector, Purna has developed her core areas of interest and expertise on issues related to gender-based violence and gender inequality. She is passionate about her work in the sector and feels strongly connected to it. She strives to be a part of a change that would ensure a society free from inequality and discrimination.

Purna is passionate about music, movies, books, food, travelling and spending time with her family and friends.

Areas of Expertise: Mobile Technology, Healthcare Delivery through Technology, Project Management, Software development, ICT4D, Client Relations

Kamalika works as the Senior Project Manager for a diverse range of projects under the umbrella of Mobile Technology for Community Health (MOTECH), that use mobile telephony and information technology to deliver health care knowledge to the rural and urban populations suffering from diseases like tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Since 2010, she has been responsible for overseeing and development of these mobile based solutions that aim to increase treatment compliance for HIV/AIDS patients taking anti-retroviral drugs, and improve delivery of tuberculosis care and maternal and child health care. She steered Grameen Foundation’s first mobile phone based health care project in the country.

Kamalika comes to Grameen Foundation with a background in computer application, software engineering and physics. Prior to joining Grameen Foundation, Kamalika spent 16 years with Siemens Information Systems Ltd. in various project management roles in the domain of telecom applications, developing GSM billing solutions, location based applications, service delivery platform and telematics solutions. She has extensive experience in managing international projects in countries such as United States and Germany and is well grounded in a range of technical languages such as C, C++ and Java.

Kamalika holds a Bachelors and Masters’ Degree from Delhi University. She is fluent in English, Bengali and Hindi and also speaks German.

Areas of Expertise: Account Management, Process Reengineering, Consultative Selling, Program Management, Strategic Planning, Governance, and Risk and Compliance.

Pankaj has joined Grameen Foundation as Program Manager, MoTech, and leads the scaling of Grameen Foundation’s health project, which in partnership with BBC Media Action Lab and the Gates Foundation, aims to deliver mHealth services to pregnant mothers and newborn children across several states in India.

He also serves as the point of contact for inquiries, requests associated with MOTECH in India and manages relationships with donors, customers and other stakeholders.

Pankaj has over 15 years of experience in a wide range of areas. He began his career as a Network Engineer and then moved on to developing applications for the government and defense sector. He has also worked in the Hospitality Industry and was responsible for implementing and managing applications and products for all of India and the SAARC region for almost 4 years. Before joining Grameen Foundation, Pankaj worked with HCL Infosystems Ltd. where he managed UIDAI’s Aadhaar MSP Project, the world’s largest IT-based Identity systems of the Government of India. He has varied experience in implementing and managing ICT projects in the government sector.

Pankaj holds a MBA from FMS, University of Delhi and a Bachelors of Technology in Electronics and Communication from Kurukshetra University.

Areas of Expertise: Economic policy and development, microfinance, financial institutions, data analysis, capacity building, portfolio management, social performance management

Devahuti brings over seven years of professional experience in the areas of economic development, poverty alleviation and policy advocacy with the goal of enhancing financial inclusion. She has worked for global development institutions such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC), where she managed responsible finance, policy advocacy related projects and micro insurance. Devahuti is also a certified SMART Assessor under ACCION International’s SMART CAMPAIGN. In addition to IFC, Devahuti has also worked for IntelleCash, a premier microfinance advisory firm specializing in the incubation of start-up microfinance institutions; and SKS Microfinance Ltd, where she managed operations for the company in various regions across India

In her current role as Program Manager of Social Performance and Client Insights, Devahuti is responsible for providing thought leadership around the use of poverty measurement by social enterprises as a business intelligence input. She also works on the knowledge creation front by undertaking new research studies with a scalable approach to establish the application of poverty-level client insights in social business settings. She also tests new methodologies for poverty measurement, client level insights and social performance management. She is currently working on partnerships that use lean poverty data in short term/longitudinal monitoring and evaluation studies.

Devahuti holds Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Master of Arts (M.A.) degrees from Delhi University.

Areas of Expertise: Information Technology, Rural Development, Business Process Analysis and Data Analysis

Priyanka works in the capacity of Associate Program Manager-Client Level Insights at Grameen Foundation. She has over four years of experience working in the areas of information technology and rural development. Priyanka started her career as a software engineer working on CRM projects for telecom companies. Two years later, she began exploring the development sector and worked on a skills development project for students in Mumbai.

After completing her Master’s degree, Priyanka joined BRLPS-JEEViKA’s (Government of Bihar’s Society for NRLM) team of Young Professionals where she worked with the Social Development Team. In this role, Priyanka worked to analyze business processes related to entitlement products, understand process bottlenecks, and develop mechanisms for better access and service delivery. She also engaged in collaborative work with community organizations, government agencies, bankers, and rural development experts.

Over the last 17 months, Priyanka worked with Reliance Foundation as an Analyst for the Monitoring and Evaluation Team. In this role, she had the opportunity to anchor information systems for the Foundation’s programs, and handle data analytics and research.

Priyanka enjoys travelling, reading, and exploring new places and local cuisines. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering-Information Technology from Vivekananda Education Society’s Institute of Technology, Mumbai University and a Master’s degree in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). Priyanka is fluent in Marathi, Hindi, and English.

Areas of Expertise: Project Management, Research Design, Primary Research, Data Analysis, Report Writing, Business Development

Rahul works as a Project Consultant – Client Level Insights at Grameen Foundation. He brings over 4 years of experience in the field of information technology and social sector advisory domain. He was working with Accenture India as a software engineer on Peoplesoft technology for US and Australia based clients for about 3 years. Post his master’s degree, he worked with Sutra Consulting, Bhubaneswar as a consultant for more than a year. His work at Sutra involved business development and implementation of projects for national and international agencies and leading iNGOs of the country. The business development roles involved developing technical and financial proposals & Expression of Interest documents, liasoning with external consultants and partner organisations. Finalisation of sampling plan & outcome and impact indicators, data analysis, report writing and knowledge dissemination at various platforms comprised the responsibilities under the project implementation role.

Rahul has completed his Bachelor’s degree in Information Science & Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum and has completed his Masters degree in Rural Management from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.

Areas of Expertise: Econometrics and Development coupled with workshops/trainings attended on monitoring tools, results based management, Logical framework analysis , Statistical packages etc.

Wamiq is a Monitoring and Evaluation Professional with a strong multi-functional experience of 3+ years on issues of Poverty and Social inclusion. He was last working as an independent researcher based in New Delhi-India. Prior to this position he has worked as Programme Coordinator–Monitoring and Evaluation in DFID/Poorest Areas Civil Society Programme (PACS). He has also worked with organizations such as Ernst and Young and Impact, Partners in Social Development on projects involving large scale data management and development of comprehensive management information system. Wamiq is academically proficient with M.A in Economics.

Madhurima is a human resource development professional, with expertise in talent acquisition and employee engagement. Over the last eight years, she has worked in various capacities within the HR divisions of various private sector organizations such as Kelly Services, Evalue Serve, ICL Group of Colleges and Allied Analytics.

Madhurima holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Maranda House, Delhi University and is a Post Graduate in Business Administration with specialization in Human Resources from Symbiosis Centre for distance learning.

Areas of expertise: Corporate Secretarial practices, Legal Drafting and interpretation of statues

Pratiksha Sahni brings three years of experience in Compliance management, drafting and vetting of various legal agreement and drafting of articles. She has the ability to deliver the right solutions that provides with social grounding and also the flexibility to accommodate long term goals. She has extensive experience in corporate laws and focuses on development areas for the benefit of the organization. She is dedicated, hardworking and result oriented performer who doesn’t shy away from the responsibilities.

She is an associate member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, Bachelor of Law and a Bachelor of Commerce.