Management Team

CAF India's CEO Meenakshi Batra spearheads a highly motivated team committed to making giving more effective in India.

• Meenakshi Batra, Chief Executive Officer

  

  Meenakshi Batra is a seasoned professional with over 24 years of experience in the international development, CSR and not-for-profit sector. She has served in leadership roles with international development and humanitarian agencies in South and Southeast Asia. Meenakshi has successfully led large country programmes in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia working with leading organizations such as DFID, Oxfam, etc. Child and human rights, poverty and vulnerabilities, equity and social exclusion, gender and masculinities are some of the areas where Meenakshi has extensive experience.

  Meenakshi has been conferred with many prestigious awards for her work in the developments sector - Indian Women Achiever Award (IWAA), NGO Women Leadership Award, Women in Leadership Award and many more.  Paving the way forward for a meaningful developmental discourse in the country, Meenakshi has helped pen many position papers such as Achieving Inclusive and Sustainable Industrialization by Promoting SMEs, Strengthening growth of not-for-profits through Inclusive Partnerships, Online Giving in India: Insights To Improve Results, Study on Corporate Foundations- An Emerging Development Paradigm. 

  Along with heading CAF India as the CEO, Meenakshi also serves on the boards of prominent organizations such as VANI, LEPRA and Resource Alliance. She has been nominated as the convener of MSD10 constituted by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to draft the requirement standards of CSR in India. Meenakshi has also served on various committees as a Member such as CII Regional Committee on Affirmative Action, CII Core Group on compendium on Industry-NGO Partnership Models, CII Core Group on CSR-CSO Bridge, CII pro-bono task force and CII Chennai CSR group. Along with being an ASPIRE Founder Fellow, she is on the CSR committees of European Business Group (EBG) and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).

  Meenakshi holds a Post Graduate degree in Child Development and Family Welfare. She has undertaken advanced studies in the areas of environment education from Centre for Environment Education, gender and social development from London School of Economics and Wye College UK.

• Avijeet Kumar, Chief of Operations

  

  Avijeet Kumar has more than 20 years of work experience in the development sector, teaching and research. He has worked with HelpAge India as Director of Programmes for more than eight years before joining CAF India. He is a graduate in sociology from Delhi University and a National Scholar in the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics. He has extensive experience in designing CSR strategies for several companies. His deep understanding of the social development sector has helped build capacities and in organizational development of non-profits. Mr. Avijeet contributed substantially to one of the largest rights based projects in India as part of the ‘Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) programme, an initiative to strengthen the awareness and capabilities of poor older persons to demand and exercise their rights and entitlements and thereby improve their quality of life.

  He also holds an M.Phil. degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has done a certificate course in designing and implementation of social programmes at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

  Avijeet has been invited to prestigious forums and events across the country, to share his knowledge on various social development sector issues, including the World CSR Congress, CII & UNICEF Conference on Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, NASSCOM Technology Roundtable, Strategic Planning Process for 2015-2020 of Global Compact Network India (GCNI), among many other important events.

• Rakesh Goswami, Director - Finance and Operations

  

  Rakesh is a seasoned finance & operations professional with more than 24 years of experience of which 18 years have been in the Development Sector. Rakesh is an expert in taxation, FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulations Act) and formulation of policies and procedures. At CAF India, along with finance, Rakesh manages systems & policies to ensure a smooth and effective working environment. Rakesh is a multi-faceted agile leader and his key strength lies in his analytical skills, business acumen and people leadership. Rakesh comes with a degree in Chartered Accountancy and has vast experience of working in ERP packages.

• Zishan Shah, Head, Partnerships

  

  Zishan is a seasoned socioeconomic development professional with over 13 years of global experience in creating collaborative, innovative, and sustainable projects on capacity development of rural, urban, and tribal communities, skills development of youth and adults, natural resource development, assessment of gaps in policies and governance, and access to education, healthcare, clean water, and recreational activities. Zishan managed several economic development offices of Canadian municipal governments in which he assisted entrepreneurs in identifying opportunities, connected them to mentors and business support organizations, and developed innovative programs for nurturing entrepreneurship. In addition, he assisted several Canadian resource organizations in developing stakeholders’ engagement strategies. He participated in several Canadian ministerial delegation to North American and Asian countries. He is an avid supporter of micro, small and medium size enterprises. He served as a board of director of various Canadian organizations. Previously, he worked for one of the apex chamber of commerce in India. At CAF India, Zishan is engaging with our NGO partners, government, corporates, and institutions to create a thriving ecosystem for sustainable social development.

  He holds a Masters in Regional Relations from University of Northern British Columbia, Canada. He also has a Masters in International Business from Jamia Millia Islamia Central University. He is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified International Trade Professional (CITP). He is a certified negotiator and negotiated several land settlement agreements between Canadian government and tribal communities of British Columbia.