Executive
Education

Navtej Sarna

Former Indian Ambassador to the US, MEA, India

Navtej Sarna was India’s Ambassador to the United States till Dec 2018. As a professional diplomat since 1980, Sarna also served as India’s High Commissioner to the UK, Ambassador to the State of Israel and Secretary at the Ministry of External Affairs. He has the distinction of being India’s longest serving foreign office spokesperson, having held that post for six years. In the earlier years of his service, he served in various diplomatic posts in Moscow, Poland, Bhutan, Iran, Washington and Geneva. Navtej Sarna is also an established author of fiction and non-fiction. His work includes the novels ‘The Exile’ and ‘We Weren’t Lovers Like That’, the short story collection ‘Winter Evenings’, non-fiction works ‘The Book of Nanak’, ‘Second Thoughts’ and ‘Indians at Herod’s Gate’, as well as two translations, ‘Zafarnama’ and ‘Savage Harvest’. He contributes columns and comments regularly to several Indian newspapers and journals. His reviews and short stories have also appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Financial Times, London Magazine and the BBC.

Nidhi Razdan

Senior Journalist and Former Executive Editor, NDTV

Nidhi Razdan is Senior Journalist and Former Executive Editor, NDTV. She worked with NDTV for nearly 21 years, where she became Executive Editor. She reported extensively on politics and foreign affairs, from places as diverse as Pakistan, POK, Afghanistan, Iran, China, Tibet and Africa. Nidhi anchored NDTV’s prime time flagship news shows “Left, Right and Centre” and “The Big Fight”. She won the International Press Institute (IPI) Award in 2019 and has been a recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Journalism Award for her reporting on Jammu and Kashmir. Her first book was published by Penguin in 2017.

Sridhar Pabbisetty

Founding Director, Kautilya School of Public Policy

Sridhar Pabbisetty, Founding Director of Kautilya School of Public Policy, has been working in public policy and governance over the last decade. Before working on public policy, he has worked in technology, innovation and management consulting for a decade. He has served as the COO, Centre for Public Policy at IIM Bangalore, and as the CEO, Namma Bengaluru Foundation, where he was able to bring in innovation in the delivery of public services and improve urban governance. He has also served as the Advisor to Government of Karnataka’s Sakala Mission and served on various Government appointed committees for Sustainability and Lake Governance.

M. V. Rajeev Gowda

Former Member of Parliament; Chairman, Congress Research Department

Rajeev Gowda is an Indian politician and academician. He represented Karnataka in the Rajya Sabha from 2014-20. He is Chairman of the Indian National Congress party’s Research Department and one of its national spokespersons. He has served as Professor of Economics and Social Sciences and Chairperson of the Centre for Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He has been Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma, and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He obtained his PhD from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He was a Director of the Central Board, Reserve Bank of India from 2011-14. He co-founded the Resurgent India Trust, MentorTogether and the Karnataka Quiz Association.

Catherine Stace

Career Strategist, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, Canada

Catherine Stace is a Career Strategist that heads Career Services at McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy, in Montreal, Canada. Driven by the belief that youth should have access to high quality career development and experimental learning opportunities, Catherine sits on the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers’ national board, heads the Canadian Public Policy Careers Community of Practice, and sits on numerous regional youth employment committees. Catherine has chaired several national and regional conferences and symposiums; most recently, she Co-Chaired a virtual national conference ‘Engaging Post-Secondary Talent: Strategies for Today and Tomorrow’. Catherine is a recipient of the McGill University Principal’s Award, and the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers’ Award of Merit.

Ram Mohan Naidu

Member of Parliament, 17th Lok Sabha

Ram Mohan Naidu is an Indian politician, and a Member of Parliament to the 17th Lok Sabha from Srikakulam (Lok Sabha constituency), Andhra Pradesh. He won the 2014 & 2019 Indian general elections as a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate. He is also the National General Secretary of the TDP and the Leader of the Party in the Lok Sabha.

M. Sri Bharat

President of GITAM (Deemed to be University)

M. Sri Bharat, President of GITAM (Deemed to be University), holds an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University. He also holds a joint MBA/MA degree from Stanford University. Bharat strongly believes in the need for a world-class public policy school and Kautilya is born out of this belief. With Kautilya, Bharat would like to reinvent public policy in India and beyond, by empowering next generation policy leaders with evidence-based pedagogy and experiential learning.

Rathin Roy

Managing Director, Research and Policy, ODI

Rathin Roy is Managing Director, Oxford Development Institute (ODI). He was formerly the Director and CEO of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), and Former Director IPC-IG, UNDP, Brazil. He has also served as the Public Resource Management Advisor, and the Acting Cluster Leader, Inclusive Development, in the Poverty Practice, Bureau for Development Policy (BDP), UNDP. On invitation from the Government of India, he also served as the Economic Advisor to the Thirteenth Finance Commission, a Constitutional body of the Government of India.

Faye D’ Souza

Award-winning journalist

Faye D’Souza is an award-winning journalist, who has changed the way news is covered on Indian Television by focusing the audience’s attention on the issues that matter to the citizens rather than those that fuel the emotions of partisan debates. Faye’s calm, researched style of hosting news shows prioritizes information over opinion. Her focus on accountability of government, responsible taxation, safety of women and children, education, health and urban development has also resulted in several policy changes that have proven that a journalist can still bring about improvements in the status quo.
Faye is the journalist of the millennials – young, fresh and brutally honest. Faye was the youngest woman journalist in India to have led a national news channel as its Executive Editor. Post her exit from television, Faye has begun her entrepreneurial journey and will soon launch her own digital news platform — targeted at the young, urban Indian audience.

Dr. Ali Adil

Assistant Professor, Kautilya School of Public Policy

Dr. Adil’s research and experience span across public, private, and non-governmental domains and interdisciplinary subject areas focused on transactional spaces at the nexus of energy studies and social sciences. He has previously worked with ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Adopting a socially constructive approach, Dr. Adil conceives teaching as an excursion in creating new imaginaries, incorporating existing knowledge of our world with creativity and intellectual novelty that students carry into the classrooms.

Siddharth Raja

Seasoned Corporate Lawyer

Siddharth is a Founder Partner at full-service law firm, Saakshya Law. A seasoned corporate lawyer, Siddharth focuses on private equity and venture capital transactions; and on cross-border and domestic mergers and acquisitions. Siddharth has served as an elected Governor on the Board of the Bangalore International Centre (BIC). He was also a member of the Karnataka Government’s Bangalore Tourism Advisory Committee. Siddharth is also a trained and certified professional mediator. Siddharth serves as an Independent Director on several Boards, including Direct Dialogue Initiatives, Nasmyth India, and Namma Ooru Parampare.

Dr. R Balasubramaniam

Development Scholar, Author & Public Policy Advocate

Dr. Ramaswami Balasubramaniam (Balu) is a development scholar, author, public policy advocate, leadership trainer and activist. After spending 26 years in development work among rural and tribal people, he pursued academic degrees in leadership, organisational development, and public policy. His books ‘Voices from the Grassroots’ and ‘I, the Citizen’ are a compilation of narratives and reflections of a development activist and are now globally acclaimed. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement (GRAAM), a public policy think tank. Inspired by the message of Swami Vivekananda, he sees his life’s mission as building a resurgent India by inspiring leadership in the youth of the country.

Piyush Tewari

Founder & CEO, SaveLIFE Foundation

Piyush Tewari is the Founder and CEO of SaveLIFE Foundation, a non-profit organisation best known for getting India a Good Samaritan Law, and for developing an award-winning model for reducing fatalities on Indian highways. Piyush serves on the Boards of Directors of Change.org, YKA Media, and Avanti Fellows. Piyush is a recipient of the prestigious Rolex Award for Enterprise, and in 2019, was named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. He has been featured by The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time Magazine, among others. In 2016, he was recognised by GQ as one of the Most Influential Young Indians. Prior to founding SLF, Piyush served as the Managing Director of the Calibrated Group, a US-based private equity fund. Previously, Piyush was as a Program Manager at the India Brand Equity Fund, an initiative of the Prime Minister of India.

Dr. Jayanthi Ranjan

Director, Hyderabad Business School

Dr. Ranjan is currently Director of GITAM University’s Hyderabad Business School. She has over 26 years of teaching, research, consulting & training experience. She is a certified Design Thinking evangelist and also consults companies on Big Data Analytics. In her academic career, Dr. Ranjan has built departments, modules, programs, and schools. She is a published author and contributor to global publications. She has co-created innovative teams, and has travelled the world for joint teachings, international collaborations, research project funding-related discussions, international exchanges, MoU partnerships, co-branding partnership talks, and conference paper presentations.

Jayanth Gudimella

Finance Professional & Strategy Consultant

Jayanth is a finance professional with over 18 years of diverse experience across global corporations (JP Morgan, CRISIL-S&P Global, SBI Capital Markets) in the areas of financial analysis, credit rating, IPO management and structured finance. Currently, he is based out of Hong Kong and runs his own consultancy firm engaged in financial advisory, business strategy and fund raising. He helps start-up companies and medium size enterprises in devising their strategy roadmap and helps them raise capital. Jayanth is deeply passionate about education reforms and teaching. He is engaged with many educational institutes and helps them in designing academic processes and operational strategy.

Glenn Kramon

Lecturer in Management, Stanford School of Business

Glenn Kramon has been an editor for The New York Times for more than a quarter-century. Reporters whom he has supervised and edited have won 10 Pulitzer Prizes, and have been finalists for the Pulitzer 25 times. His projects have included series about the overlooked problem of concussions among young athletes; the dangers of distracted driving; the safety and environmental hazards of sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks; cheating on taxes, and loopholes and inequities in the tax code; medical treatments used despite a lack of evidence that they work; the myths and truths about genetically modified foods; the ways the United States is and is not moving toward a more secure energy future, and environmental devastation in China. He also introduced a system to ensure that Times editors become good managers, and authored a handbook on running the newsroom. Earlier he served as business editor of The Times, and wrote about the business of health care and health insurance.

David Sunder Singh

Advocate & Human Rights Lawyer

David Sunder Singh is practising since 2002. After his LL.B., he did his M.A in Human Rights, Duties & Education, and an LL.M. in Labour and Administrative Law. He has been involved in the rescue of bonded labourers and has pursued PILs to secure rights for vulnerable persons. He writes on related issues and is a trainer with various State bodies.

Dr. Ashwin Mahesh

Social Technologist, Urbanist and Entrepreneur

Dr. Ashwin Mahesh is a social technologist, urbanist and entrepreneur based in Bangalore, India. After a 15-year career as a polar climate scientist and astronomer, he switched to social enterprise, focused on urban development and governance. He is Founder & CEO of Mapunity, which builds urban social networking platforms and tools for development initiatives. He is also Co-founder of Lithium, which launched the first fleet of electric cars in India. He is Co-founder and Editor of the national public affairs magazine, India Together. He has been an advisor to many initiatives of state & national governments in India. He was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs in 2009.

Cdr. Ashok V M Kumar (Retd.)

Former Navy Officer, Consultant on Human Trafficking

Cdr. Ashok V M Kumar (Retd.) is Regional Director – Investigation & Law Enforcement Development, at International Justice Mission. He was an Officer commanding ships in the Indian Navy, and later held positions with the Coast Guard, Marine Police Force and Naval Police Investigations. In his work, fighting trafficking crime syndicates, he has been directly involved in the rescue of over 3600 women and children from contemporary forms of slavery. Cdr. Ashok assists and provides training to many organisations, as an expert consultant.

Dr. Anjali Mohan

Urban & Regional Planner

Dr. Mohan’s research and professional practice over the last 27 years straddles development, institutional and policy frameworks, urban planning and management, and information and communication technologies and development. She has successfully completed several planning assignments in her individual capacity and as part of multi-disciplinary teams. Dr. Mohan has also designed and delivered several training and capacity building programmes, both for state and non-state actors, primarily focusing on planning, heritage-led planning and attendant (e)Governance arrangements.

Ram Mohan Naidu

Member of Parliament, 17th Lok Sabha

Ram Mohan Naidu is an Indian politician, and a Member of Parliament to the 17th Lok Sabha from Srikakulam (Lok Sabha constituency), Andhra Pradesh. He won the 2014 & 2019 Indian general elections as a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate. He is also the National General Secretary of the TDP and the Leader of the Party in the Lok Sabha.

Anil Swarup

Author, Retired IAS Officer

Anil Swarup is an Indian author and retired Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1981 batch of Uttar Pradesh cadre. Mr. Swarup, in his 38-year career, has served in various capacities, and later went on to become the Secretary to the Government of India. A successful bureaucrat, Anil Swarup, is known to believe in getting things done, despite the challenges.

Steve Jarding

Professor, Harvard Kennedy School

Steve Jarding is an American and international educator, lecturer, writer, and political consultant who taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of government from 2004 – 2019. While there, he was voted “Teacher of the Year” by students in 2016. In addition, his teaching was recognized as “Exemplary” by Kennedy School alumni, and his course on Campaign Management was twice nominated for the “Most Influential Course” Award. His research focuses on political campaign management and messaging and on a new paradigm of political communication that he developed at Harvard and with thousands of trainees around the world. Over a 40-year career, he has lectured, trained, or consulted in over 40 countries in Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe and he has been recognized as one of the most successful political campaign managers and consultants in America compiling an impressive list of winning US Senate and gubernatorial races.

Dilip Cherian

Political Campaign Advisor, Communications Consultant

Dilip Cherian is India’s Image Guru, a political campaign advisor and a cutting-edge policy professional. He actively guides political & policy advocacy and understands the Indian bureaucratic system. Dilip is the Co-founder of and Consulting Partner for Perfect Relations, established in the early 1990s. The company advises CEOs on external communications and public policy. It is South Asia’s largest image management consultancy. Dilip also writes a widely syndicated column on bureaucracy called ‘Dilli Ka Babu’.

Rathin Roy

Managing Director, Research and Policy, ODI

Rathin Roy is Managing Director, Oxford Development Institute (ODI). He was formerly the Director and CEO of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), and Former Director IPC-IG, UNDP, Brazil. He has also served as the Public Resource Management Advisor, and the Acting Cluster Leader, Inclusive Development, in the Poverty Practice, Bureau for Development Policy (BDP), UNDP. On invitation from the Government of India, he also served as the Economic Advisor to the Thirteenth Finance Commission, a Constitutional body of the Government of India.

Priyanka Chaturvedi

Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha

Priyanka Chaturvedi is an Indian politician serving as Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra, and Deputy Leader of Shiv Sena. She has also contributed columns and blogs for various online sites and print editions of leading newspapers and magazines. She is also a regular on television on various issues as a National Spokesperson. She is a member of Parliament Standing Committee – Commerce & Industries, and Consultative Committee for External Affairs.

Indermit Singh Gill

Prof. of Public Policy; Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution

Indermit Gill is a Non-resident Senior Fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution, where he co-edits the blog ‘Future Development’. He is also a Professor of the Practice of Public Policy at Duke University, where he was Director of the Duke Center for International Development until 2018. Gill worked at the World Bank from 1993 to 2016, where he held several leadership positions, including Director for Development Policy in the Office of the Chief Economist, Chief Economist for Europe and Central Asia, Acting Chief Economist for East Asia and the Pacific, and Staff Director for the 2009 World Development Report on Economic Geography.

Prateek Kanwal

Co-founder, Kautilya School of Public Policy

Prateek Kanwal, Co-founder of Kautilya School of Public Policy, did his Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) from the Harvard Kennedy School. He was awarded the prestigious World Bank scholarship for his work in the areas of education reform and social innovation. He is currently the Head of Strategic Partnerships at Educate Girls, a non-profit organization with operations in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh & Rajasthan. He is also the Founder of Citizens for Public Leadership (www.cplindia.org).

M. Sri Bharat

President of GITAM

M. Sri Bharat, President of GITAM (Deemed to be University), holds an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University. He also holds a joint MBA/MA degree from Stanford University. Bharat strongly believes in the need for a world-class public policy school and Kautilya is born out of this belief. With Kautilya, Bharat would like to reinvent public policy in India and beyond, by empowering next generation policy leaders with evidence-based pedagogy and experiential learning.