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Leadership

Board of Directors​

Srivatsan Rajan

Chairman, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Dr. Rachana Kulkarni, M.D.

Vice Chairman, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Siva Sivaram

Chairman Emeritus, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Gururaj “Desh" Deshpande

Chairman Emeritus, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Madhu Pandit Dasa

Chairman, Akshaya Patra Foundation India

Chanchalapathi Dasa

Vice Chairman, Akshaya Patra Foundation India

Roopa Makhija

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

B.V. Jagadeesh

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Raghu Raghuram

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Janardan Thakkar

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Rajiv Jain

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Navin Goel

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

National Advisory Board

Dr. Deepak Chopra

Founder, The Chopra Center for Wellbeing

Narayana Murthy

Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Infosys Limited

Sanjeev Kapoor

Celebrity Chef

Dr. Neeli Bendapudi

President of Penn State University

Chitra Divakaruni

Award-Winning Writer, Activist, Professor

Ashu Garg

General Partner, Foundation Capital

Navneet S Chugh

Managing Partner and Founder, Chugh, LLP

Rahul Merchant

Board Member, Fmr. Executive and Philanthropist

Pallavi Verma

Senior Managing Director, Accenture

Vinodh Bhat

Ex-CEO, Jio Saavn

Niren Chaudhary

Fmr. Chairman/CEO, Panera Brands

Sumir Chadha

Co-Founder & Managing Partner, WestBridge Capital

Anju Ahuja

Board Member, Tillman Global Holdings

Navin Chaddha

Vice Chair, Stanford Engineering Venture Fund

Akshaya Patra USA Team

Navin Goel

Chief Executive Officer

Jyothi Sathyan

Chief Financial Officer

Swati Sharma

Corporate & Institutional Partnerships

Geeta Kulkarni

Vice President, Development (West)

Ankita Narula

Vice President, Development (East)

Nidhi Kathuria

Vice President, Development

Krishna Tripathi

Vice President, Development

Prachi Jaitly

Development Manager

Rishabh Sharma

Development Director

Piyali Dutta

Events Coordinator

Neil Mehta

Vice President, Marketing & Digital

Chirag Jain

Manager, Marketing & Digital

Aviral Agarwal

Research & Data Analyst

Grant Trevathan

Director, Design & Web Development

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Srivatsan Rajan

Chairman, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Sri Rajan is currently an Advisory Partner at Bain & Company in San Francisco. He has served as the Managing Partner for Bain & Company India and subsequently as its Chairman for its India operations. Sri is an investor in and advisor to many startups and funds and is also the chair of the Advisory Board of Akshaya Patra in India and the Vice-Chair of Akshaya Patra USA. He is on the boards of various non-profit and for-profit organizations.

Dr. Rachana Kulkarni, M.D.

Vice Chairman, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Dr Rachana Kulkarni is a cardiologist in New Jersey for the last 20 years. She is the managing partner of Medicor Cardiology, a leading cardiology group in Central Jersey. She has served as the Chief of Cardiology and Chairman of Medicine at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset and is the President of American Heart Association New Jersey Chapter.

Dr Kulkarni has been involved with Akshaya Patra for the last several years. She has been instrumental in building a robust Chapter of Akshaya Patra in New Jersey and has led her team to host two successful Galas in New Jersey. She passionately believes in improving the world through education and thinks that Akshaya Patra is the perfect vehicle to achieve that change in an entire generation of Indian kids.

Siva Sivaram

Chairman Emeritus, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Dr. Siva Sivaram is the President of QuantumScape, a leader in next-generation solid-state lithium-metal batteries.

A tech executive with exceptional experience across the semiconductor, data storage and solar industries, Dr. Sivaram has held key leadership positions at Western Digital, SanDisk, Intel and Matrix Semiconductors over the last four decades. He also founded and led Twin Creek Technologies, a company specialized in novel solar cells and equipment.

Dr. Sivaram has authored numerous technical papers and a textbook on chemical vapor deposition and holds several patents in semiconductor and solar technologies.

Dr. Sivaram currently sits on the board of directors for the US-India Business Council, and Akshaya Patra, the world’s largest NGO dedicated to feeding school children. He earned his Doctorate and Master’s degrees in Materials Science from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is a Distinguished Alumnus of the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Gururaj “Desh" Deshpande

Chairman Emeritus, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande was the Chairman of Akshaya Patra USA from 2008 to 2020. Dr. Deshpande is the President and Chairman of Sparta Group LLC and has founded several successful companies including Cascade Communications and Sycamore Networks. Dr. Deshpande holds a B. Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, an M.E. from the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and Ph.D from Queens University in Canada. Dr. Deshpande serves as a life-member of the MIT Corporation.

Madhu Pandit Dasa

Chairman, Akshaya Patra Foundation India

Madhu Pandit Dasa has been a member of the Akshaya Patra USA Board of Directors since 2006. He completed his B.Tech in Civil Engineering from IIT-Mumbai in the year 1980. While he was doing his Masters in Technology in IIT-Mumbai in 1981, he became a full-time member of ISKCON. In 1994, he initiated an integrated social development project for the benefit of the rural people of Mysore and Mandya districts. A model, prototype organic farm based on natural and earth-friendly farming methods along with an internationally accredited farmer-training center has been setup in the 110-acre land on the banks of river Kaveri in Srirangapatam. He designed the first centralized and mechanized kitchen of Akshaya Patra, to provide school meals to underprivileged children in the Government schools of Bangalore Rural District during July 2000.

Chanchalapathi Dasa

Vice Chairman, Akshaya Patra Foundation India

Chanchalapathi Dasa, known to many as “CP Ji”, was among the first founders of the Akshaya Patra Foundation. While in college, he embraced the mission of Srila Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and became a full-time dedicated member in 1984. Inspired by Srila Prabhupada’s message of compassion and self-less service, Chanchalapathi Dasa helped found Akshaya Patra as a pilot program serving school meals to just 1,500 children in 5 schools in Bangalore. Together, the founders combined their own knowledge of engineering to transform Akshaya Patra into one of the world’s largest NGO-run school meal programs that today serves 2 million children daily in over 22,000 schools from 66 kitchens in 15 states & 2 Union Territories across India. Today, Chanchalapathi Dasa manages the executive operations of the Foundation.

Roopa Makhija

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Roopa is Co-founder and President of GEP, a global procurement and supply chain organization. She founded GEP with the dream of a beautiful company, a place that touches employees, clients and communities in a positive and sustainable way. She leads GEP’s CSR initiatives and has been supporting Akshaya Patra both in US and India for the last 5+ years.

She has a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Pharmacy and an MBA from the University of Chicago, but considers herself a student for life.

B.V. Jagadeesh

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

B. V. Jagadeesh is a successful serial entrepreneur in the field of technology, a Venture Capitalist and a philanthropist. He co-founded and was CTO of Exodus communications in 1993 that pioneered the concept of Internet data centers. He was instrumental in successful IPO of Exodus in 1998. Jagadeesh seed funded NetScaler and became President and CEO in 2000. NetScaler was successfully sold to Citrix for $325M and Jagadeesh served as Group VP and GM for Citrix application networking division. Jagadeesh has served as CEO and President for 3Leaf Systems. Currently Jagadeesh is a Managing Partner at KAAJ Ventures.

Raghu Raghuram

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Raghu Raghuram currently serves as CEO of VMware and is a thought leader who has successfully maneuvered operations over the course of several years, having held numerous senior positions managing strategy, product & service offerings. He was also part of the leadership team that took VMware through its first IPO. Raghu holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

Raghu Raghuram has been a strong supporter of Akshaya Patra USA for several years and believes that, “education and nutrition are deeply interrelated. The tradeoff that children have to make on a daily basis, between food and education, is extremely distressing. Akshaya Patra has been tackling this issue for several years now and I am honored & humbled to be a part of the vision to rid classrooms of hunger and enable every child’s intrinsic right to access education all across India.”

Janardan Thakkar

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Janardan Thakkar’s diverse career encompasses engineering, entrepreneurship, and business leadership. With an academic foundation in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and completing substantial portion of MBA course work, he embarked on a journey that included roles within various manufacturing enterprises. Notably, Janardan’s entrepreneurial prowess emerged as he acquired a modest garage machine shop and molded it into a distinguished enterprise, serving a spectrum of industries.

Janardan and Linda ardently champion philanthropy through the Thakkar Family Foundation and personal initiatives. Their advocacy spans two decades, encompassing domains such as arts, hunger relief, and humanitarian causes. Janardan’s conviction in addressing childhood hunger as pivotal for holistic development drives his support for organizations intertwining nutrition and education, aligning with Arthur Fletcher’s maxim: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Their enduring commitment to the local food bank exemplifies this ethos. Currently, their contributions extend to the Akshaya Patra Organization by funding a kitchen providing 35,000 school lunches daily throughout the academic year.

Janardan’s appreciation for the pivotal role of community police and firefighters finds manifestation through his support for the 100 Club of Houston, which aids their families, upon ultimate sacrifices. Janardan’s narrative stands as a beacon, epitomizing not solely professional accomplishments, but also a profound dedication in a small way to the betterment of society at large.

Rajiv Jain

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

Navin Goel

Board Member, The Akshaya Patra Foundation USA

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