Board Members
Tasqeen Macchiwalla
Tasqeen Macchiwalla is a senior leadership team member leading the “Children and adolescents” portfolio at the Azim Premji Foundation (Philanthropy). She has spent more than three decades in NGOs, multinational organisations and funding organisations including with the International Labour Organization (ILO), ActionAid India, and Seva Mandir, Rajasthan. She started her career from Sewa Mandir, Rajasthan. Her experience spans managing programs on sustainable agriculture in India, including natural farming in Andhra Pradesh. She is an advisor to many NGOs including CORO India and Led By Foundation.
Tasqeen has worked on issues of small and marginal farmers, natural resource management, livelihoods, migration, and labour in the informal economy. Gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment, child labour and education, health, HIV/AIDS are also areas on which she has worked closely with grassroots organizations and networks to build capacities, vision, and strategy, as well as engaged in policy research and advocacy. She has an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Pittsburgh with a focus on community and identity.
Pallavi Kanchan
Pallavi has more than 25 years of experience across various domains including investment banking, media and nonprofit sector. Currently, she is spending most of her time in non-profit space in advisory and board roles championing Diversity and Women’s empowerment at the workplace, revival of the folk arts and crafts of India, education for the underprivileged and improving and up tiering the community in the local neighbourhood.
Ms. Pallavi Kanchan completed her Economics Honours from St. Stephen’s College and her post graduation degree in Business Administration from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University. Started her banking career in 1993 with ANZ Grindlays Bank. Initially in retail banking, she subsequently moved to corporate and then investment banking. She has worked with Standard Chartered Bank (Head Commercial Real Estate) and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd. (Director, Global Banking.) She then went on to apply her management expertise in the media space and was the Chief Executive Officer, The Indian and Eastern Engineers Co. Pvt Ltd, Publisher of Verve and IQ magazines.
Vainateya Gavai
Vainateya has more than two decades of experience in the media space. He spent significant time with McCann, one of the leading media agencies in India.
Currently, he is an advisor to Dharma Life as well as a co-founder and lead of Design and Digital verticals at Siriti, taking on projects spanning Service Design, Experience Design, UI/UX, Technology-Based Solutions, Digital Marketing, Performance Marketing, Social Media and more. He co-founded whyIT Solutions – a one-stop shop for all things digital. He has worked with corporations in multiple countries. He has worked with brands like Complan, Horlicks, Hotstar, Omron, Coca Cola, Nestle, Hiranandani Group, Mahindra, Jet Airways and ACUVUE to name a few and seen successes at international award shows like the Effies, Clios and the Globals.