Dr. Ruchi Mehta is the Board Chair of Teach For India U.S. She also serves on the Executive board of the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, and is the Trustee Chair of the Budget, Audit and Investment committee. Ruchi is a former Managing Director and Partner of Lone Pine Capital where she led healthcare investments. She obtained her undergraduate from St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi, her Masters from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and her Doctorate in Molecular Biology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Ruchi has been actively involved at her children’s school, assuming various leadership roles in the Parents Association, the Council and the Annual Fund.
Amar serves as founder and principal of Stronger Communities, a social impact consulting firm, which supports leaders and organizations to build and implement vision, strategy, and ultimately realize their community impact goals. He is passionate about cultivating conditions for communities to become places where all flourish – places free of poverty and filled with love and opportunity. A son of Indian immigrants, a first-generation Hoosier and American K-12 public schools graduate, Amar graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in biomedical engineering. He began his career as a high school science teacher through Teach For America in Chicago. He went on to serve as Executive Director of Teach For America Indianapolis during which time he led the organization to top-flight results across the national network. He is a member of the Stanley K. Lacy Executive Leadership Series Class XLIV, recipient of Indianapolis Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 Award, and was named among “Indy’s Best and Brightest” by Junior Achievement of Central Indiana. Amar serves on the boards of Rooted School Foundation, Teach For India US, Tindley Accelerated Schools, and the Arthur M. Glick Jewish Community Center of Indianapolis.
Ajay Gupta is Senior Partner Emeritus at McKinsey & Company. He brings 30 years of global experience and judgment across multiple healthcare segments having led McKinsey Midwest Healthcare and Medical Products. He served a wide variety of clients on topics of strategy, M&A, commercial excellence, organization design and performance improvement. Ajay serves on the boards of Healthium Medtech, BJC Healthcare, Vizient Inc, OnPoint Surgical, VIC Technology Ventures, RAND Health Advisory, Innovaccer Advisory Council, and is an advisor to several healthcare companies. Previously Ajay spent 5 years at Schlumberger Wireline in Asia and Europe. He earned an MBA from Stanford University where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and a B.Tech from IIT Delhi where he was awarded the President’s Gold Medal.
Alka Thukral graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the University of Texas at Arlington. She worked in the architectural field for several years, followed by a shift in careers into the technology space for proprietary banking software at UBS. Alka is also an active board member for Streets International, a culinary and hospitality based education organization for disadvantaged and vulnerable youth living in poverty in Vietnam. For the last 10 years, Alka has been active in her children’s school. She lives in Greenwich, CT and is married to Nikhil and has three children - Yana, Renna and Soren.
Mallika is passionate about education and has been funding and advising education organizations for the last 10 years. She currently works with Compro, an education technology company that builds online courseware for higher-educational institutes, corporates and education publishers. Before joining Compro, Mallika worked at Omidyar Network, an impact investment firm, where she led the education portfolio in India. Prior to Omidyar Network, Mallika worked in the US as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, Broadview and, most recently, with Citigroup. She has been on a number of education company and non-profit Boards previously, including Aspiring Minds, EnglishHelper, and Dasra. Mallika is also a Board Advisor to 3.2.1 Education Foundation, a non-profit organization that was founded by a Teach for India alumni. Mallika has a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Smith College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ravi works at the software company Intuit in corporate development. He has over 10 years of experience at the intersection of technology and finance, including working in corporate development and strategic finance at Credit Karma, business operations at LinkedIn, and investment banking at Goldman Sachs. He also serves as the treasurer of the board for Animal Charity Evaluators, and has previously served on the board of Philadelphia's largest homeless shelter network, the Bethesda Project. He earned an MBA with Honors from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated Magna Cum Laude with High Honors in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University.
Riddhima is a Sustainability Specialist with a decade of experience advising on clean energy policy and programs, developing solar projects, as well as financing and structuring infrastructure projects globally. She holds a BA in Law, Economics and Natural Resource Management from the University of Cambridge as well as an MA in International Policy from Stanford University. Riddhima strongly believes in the transformative power of a quality education. She has a unique connection to our mission, having volunteered in an under-resourced classroom as part of the Akanksha Foundation and Save the Children India during her high school years in Mumbai.
Rohan Narayan is a Partner of One Rock Capital Partners, LLC. Prior to One Rock, Mr. Narayan was a Principal at Lindsay Goldberg. Prior to Lindsay Goldberg, Mr. Narayan was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division and a Vice President at Ripplewood Holdings. At Lindsay Goldberg, Goldman Sachs and Ripplewood, Mr. Narayan served on several boards of directors and was responsible for sourcing, evaluating, executing and exiting transactions in a number of sectors including industrials, healthcare and financial services. Prior to Ripplewood, Mr. Narayan was an Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs in the Financial Institutions group. Mr. Narayan earned a B.S. in Economics, summa cum laude, from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Sharmistha (Shar) Dubey most recently served as the CEO of Match Group from 2020-2022 overseeing a portfolio of brands like Tinder and Hinge and currently resides in Dallas, Texas. Before serving as CEO of Match Group, Dubey held several executive leadership roles including President of Match Group, Chief Operating Officer of Tinder, President of Americas at Match Group, Chief Product Officer of the Princeton Review and Tutor.com, and Chief Product Officer at Match.com, and Chemistry.com. Shar has been the recipient of Tech Leader of the Year for Vogue’s “Women of The Year” awards and in 2021, she was named one of Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women in Business”. Shar currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Match Group, Fortive, Naspers, Prosus and MyFitnessPal. Shar holds an MS degree from the Ohio State University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Shar is a big believer in education’s role in elevating people’s lives and communities and is particularly passionate about creating a systemic impact to enable more access to women and girls in STEM fields.
Vikas is a Managing Director and member of various illiquid Investment Committees at HPS Investment Partners, a leading global investment firm with more than $60 billion of assets under management. Prior to joining HPS in 2010, he spent a majority of his career at BlackRock, where he was a part of the initial team that established, structured and capitalized BlackRock Capital Investment Corporation (NASDAQ: BKCC), a publicly traded private investment vehicle. Vikas is a CFA charterholder and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude. He feels passionately about expanding the educational opportunity set for those less fortunate.
Shaheen grew up in 5 countries around the world, and returned to India when she was 18 to start Akanksha. For 17 years, she worked with teachers and students, building Akanksha to provide children from low-income communities the kind of education that would maximize their greatest potential. Today, Akanksha serves 9300 children through their School Project and after-school centres in Mumbai and Pune. In 2008, Shaheen founded Teach For India, with an audacious vision of providing an excellent education to all children across India through building a pipeline of leaders committed to ending educational inequity in India. Today, Teach For India directly impacts approximately 28,000 children across seven regions in India. Shaheen has also created projects like the Kid's Education Revolution, which explores student leadership and platforms for student voice and partnership, and TFIx, which is a year-long incubator program for passionate entrepreneurs who are willing to adapt Teach For India’s model to their context in rural areas. Shaheen currently serves on the boards of Akanksha Foundation. Shaheen has been an Ashoka Fellow, a Global Leader for Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum, and an Asia Society 21 Leader. She is the author of the book, Redrawing India and the Miss Muglee Children’s Books. She has a Bachelor’s Degree from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, and a Master’s Degree from the University of Manchester.
Athena Tapales worked in public policy and research for over 25 years. Her research focused on the social determinants of health and educational outcomes of youth, women and immigrants in the United States and overseas. Athena received a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the sociology of education. She has an MA in public policy from the University of Minnesota and a BA in economics from the University of Illinois. Athena was an active volunteer at her children’s schools and has served on nonprofit boards. She is a docent at the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Public Library.
Charag is the Teach for India U.S. Alumni Council Chair, and member of the founding cohort of Teach for India in 2009. Teaching 51 kids in Grades 2 and 3 at a municipal school in Pune, India taught him invaluable life lessons over his two years at TFI. Currently a Partner at McKinsey & Company, Charag collaborates with a range of universities on topics of financial sustainability, operations, M&A and analytics. He led his team to set up Generation India, a non-profit founded by McKinsey, focused on supporting youth employment, and has also served as a UNICEF Innovation Fellow. Charag received his MBA from Kellogg Business School and a Bachelor of Technology from National Institute of Technology, Bhopal. He is a recipient of the prestigious Young Impact, Tata, Mahindra and National Talent Search scholarships.
Kirti Reddy is an alumna of the London School of Economics where she earned a degree in Mathematics and Economics. Kirti has dedicated the past several years to steering the success of Cedar Ridge Ventures, where she serves as Founder and Managing Partner. Before founding Cedar Ridge Ventures, Kirti worked in investment banking at Deutsche Bank and UBS. Kirti is a passionate philanthropist, serving on the boards of The Pingry School, The Rotary Club, Community In Crisis and Mantra4Change US. She has also served as Co-Chair at various Indian community-based conventions in the U.S. Kirti's passion for creating positive change is also furthered by her family foundation, The Kirti and Prashanth Reddy Charitable Trust, where Kirti serves as Managing Trustee.
Ramesh Srinivasan is an invited guest to the Teach For India U.S. Board, and a Board Member of Teach For India. He is also a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, and an established leader in Pharmaceutical and Organization practices. He is a Dean of the Bower Forum, McKinsey's program for CEO learning. Ramesh has extensive experience working on a broad range of strategy and organizational topics across healthcare, private equity, high-tech, banking and industrial sectors. His illustrious portfolio has seen him serve various companies on topics related to operations, marketing and research and development. These projects include merger management, organization design, leadership development, and transformational change.
Vipul Khanna is the CEO of Firstsource Solutions, a leading, publicly listed, Business Process Management company. Vipul has had the privilege of building businesses from ground-up and established himself as a global BPM expert. He successfully led Cognizant’s Digital Operations start-up practice into a $2bn business, was the founding CEO of UBS’s Internal Service Company focused on research, capital market operations & IT; been a founder member of eFunds’s (now Fidelity National) BPO business and been an early member of American Express’s pioneering Global Shared Services program. At Firstsource, he reset the strategic and operational vision to be a purposeful company focused on Banking & Financial Services, Healthcare and CMT industries, offering contemporary solutions propelled by its Digital First Digital Now philosophy. With a sharp focus on clients and its people, Firstsource has built a strong momentum of profitable growth while steadily climbing up the industry rankings for the depth and sophistication of its solutions, commercial innovation, and its quality of talent. With a strong penchant for bringing communities of people together, Vipul has been the founding board member of United Way of Hyderabad. Vipul also serves as the chairman of NASSCOM’s BPM Council and as board member of the Bay Area Chapter of Young Presidents' Organization. Vipul is a Chartered Accountant, and a Cost and Management Accountant. He currently splits his time in the Bay Area and Tri-state area to be close to his children. He enjoys hiking, getting there on skiing, meeting new people, and having meaningful conversations. Vipul deeply believes in the power of education in building the future leaders of India.
Neha serves as the Executive Director for Teach for India US since September, 2024. A mission-driven leader committed to moral ambition, she blends behavioral science, education, and technology to create lasting societal impact. With over 15 years of executive experience in both for-profit and non-profit sectors, she has consistently driven transformative growth and innovation across education, technology, financial services, and youth development sectors. Most recently, as CEO of True Office Learning, she spearheaded the creation of an award-winning digital learning solution, used by leading global enterprises to elevate ethical performance. Her strategic leadership includes key roles at organizations like the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup, where she generated significant stakeholder value and managed large-scale change initiatives impacting over 110,000 employees globally. As an expert in culture-first growth strategies, Neha serves on multiple boards, guiding purpose-driven, sustainable impact. Born in India and raised in the U.S., Neha is a dedicated advocate and philanthropist supporting several Indian non-profits in education and healthcare. She also sits on the board of Targum Publishing Company, the non-profit organization behind America’s second-oldest student-run newspaper. Outside of her professional work, Neha is an avid traveler, patron of the arts, and a real estate enthusiast. She holds an MBA in Global Business & Strategy and a B.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rutgers University. Driven by her own experience of education transforming lives, Neha is passionate about advancing equity in education for all.