Dr Somnath Ghosh (Chair and Director)
Dr. Somnath Ghosh, recently retired as Professor & Founding Dean (Academics) at Indian Institute of Management Kashipur. He is an Industrial Relations, HR, Organization Design and Institutional Development specialist and established the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Development of which he was the Chair.
A Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, he was Visiting Fellow, Cornell University (USA) where he worked with Professor William Foote Whyte, the legendary researcher, scholar and author in Cornell’s Program for Employment and Workplace System (PEWS).
He has held regular faculty positions at three other IIMs: at Lucknow, Bangalore and Indore. He was also Professor at International Management Institute, New Delhi and Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. Before joining IIM Kashipur, he was Professor and Chair of doctoral program at Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. For ten years (2006-16), he was also Visiting Faculty at IIM Ahmedabad, where he taught Organizational Diagnosis & Performance. Post retirement, for a brief period, he was Adjunct Faculty at IIM Sirmaur.
His consulting and institutional development experiences are wide and many. Among his over twenty assignments, he has consulted in the areas of compensation management, performance management, organization design and work practice changes with such organizations as NTPC, Coal India, Ester Industries, Union Carbide, Kriti Industries among others. He was World Bank consultant for assignments on institutional strengthening with respect to resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) of project affected people and cadre management to improve their R&R delivery system. He was also Lead Consultant to Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Government of India, for “Improving Delivery System for Artisans’ Livelihoods”. For British Government’s Department of International Development (DFID) and Public Health Foundation of India, he did separate studies with respect to the design and delivery of public health system in (undivided) Andhra Pradesh. He was again World Bank consultant for “Strengthening & Transforming Institutions for Management of R&R” for government of Andhra Pradesh. While he was at IIM Kashipur, he was involved in a multi-year World Bank funded and monitored assignment related to Uttar Pradesh Health Systems Strengthening Project.
Currently, he has been engaged by Johns Hopkins University to advise the restructuring of the Directorate of Medical Health of Govt. of Uttar Pradesh. He has authored over 75 articles, chapters, reports and cases. As a reflection of his consulting and institution building roles, he has served on the boards of half a dozen organizations, including Institute of Livelihood Research and Training (ILRT) and Krishna Bhima Samruddhi Local Area Bank Limited.
Mr. Vijay Nadkarni (Director)
Mr. Vijay Nadkarni has worked for over four decades in varied fields including banking and finance, roll out of financial technology, education and the development sector, especially in the area of livelihoods and rural development. He has extensive experience in financing of agriculture and livelihoods, small and medium enterprises, exports as well as housing finance and retail banking. Besides working with State Bank of India where he headed a region in a predominantly agricultural area, he has worked as the Managing Director of Krishna Bhima Samruddhi Local Area Bank, the only bank in the country with a mission to provide financial services to the under-served and to provide livelihoods for the poor and rural women.
In the non-profit sector, he was the executive head of an alliance of voluntary organizations formed for promoting the credibility of the voluntary sector through the promotion of norms of transparency and good governance. He is a member on the Board of Indian Grameen Services, a not-for-profit organisation working for incubating innovations in rural livelihoods, and was also its executive head for a brief period. He is a member of the Governing Council of SOSVA Training and Promotion Institute, Pune, (STAPI) which is a society for training of small community-based organisations. He has volunteered for a large number of organizations throughout his career for disaster relief, conservation of environment, rights of tribal communities etc. He is visiting faculty for the Postgraduate Programme for Development Management conducted by the S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai (SPJIMR).
Mr. Rajiv Mahajan (Director)
Rajiv is a Construction professional with 35 years of vast and varied experience and has held leadership position in large firms in India. He was Sr. Vice President & Director with HCL Technologies Ltd- As Head of construction he led the Construction of their IT Campuses in Noida, Chennai, Bangalore, Madurai, Nagpur & Lucknow and their Schools and University Campuses in NCR constituting nearly 8 million sq. ft. As Chief Operating Officer of DLF-Laing O’ Rourke India Ltd. (a 50:50 JV of Real estate leader in India DLF and Laing O’Rourke a 6 Billion USD British Construction Conglomerate) he built the company from scratch and recruited more than 800 engineers and constructed over 15 million sq. Ft of commercial and residential buildings across India. During this stint he brought a paradigm shift in safety and welfare of the labor force which forced the industry to adapt these as a norm. He was also the Regional Head –North for Construction Giant Shapoorji Pallonji & Co. Ltd. He is a master in all aspects of Project Management and held in high esteem in the Industry by architects, project management and construction professionals.
Rajiv is an Alumnus of Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram from where he passed high school and Birla Institute of Technology and Science –BITS-Pilani from where he graduated as B.E.(Hons) Civil Engineering and MSc. (Hons) Economics. He is also a Chartered Engineer (CE) and Fellow of Institution of Engineers (FIE) and Member of Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS)
Mr. Mihir Sahana (Director)
Mr. Mihir Sahana, has a basic background of agriculture and postgraduate degree in rural management from IRMA and a mid-career post-Graduation Degree in Development Studies from The University of Manchester, UK. He has worked for more than 15 years with a host of national NGO, INGO, Corporate and Government. His initial career with PRADAN (Professional Assistance for Development Action – a national NGO working across India) exposed him to the grassroots realities of rural poor and he worked with PRADAN’s Natural Resource Management Team. His stint with the Bihar State Dairy (a state government enterprise) and then in Dabur has helped him pick up necessary skills of achieving steep targets, sales and marketing and also developing a good understanding both the corporate and a government run enterprises. He finally shifted to the livelihood sector and joined an international and corporate NGO, IDE International, with a mission to promote livelihoods of small and marginal farmers by identifying, developing and promoting appropriate technologies using principles of marketing to achieve scale and sustainability. He joined the Sr. Management Team of BASIX and is involved in developing a host of innovative products and processes by provisioning of financial services both in the farm and non-farm sector, provisioning of innovative business development services and developing linkage with corporate and technology provider like Pepsico, ITC, ICAR institutions etc. and institutional development services in collaboration with various Government Department.
Mr. Sattaiah Devarakonda (Director)
Mr. Sattaiah Devarakonda is a post graduate in Management with a bachelor degree in Maths, Physics and Chemistry from Osmania University, Hyderabad. Mr. Sattaiah has stint of Entrepreneur for over four years. He started his career as a Technical Assistant in AP Productivity Council before joining BASIX Social Enterprise Group. He joined BASIX as a Field Executive and rose to the position of Director, Operations, Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Limited. He was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of BASIX Sub-K iTransactions Limited (now Sub-K Impact Solutions Limited) during September 2012 to June 2016. He has been Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer for BASIX Academy for Building Life-long Employability Limited since September 2015 till date. He assumed the role of the Managing Director of Bhartiya Samruddhi Investments and Consulting Services Limited (BASICS Ltd.,) and has been leading BASIX Group.
His contributions to BASIX Social Enterprise Group includes initiating micro-credit operations, micro-insurance operations, setting up Corporate Human Resource Department and develop policy manuals on Operations, Human Resource Management. He was instrumental in developing successful and long-standing collaborations with insurance companies which lead to contributions in micro insurance products, policies.
Mr. Sattaiah has over 29 years of experience including a tenure of 22 years with BASIX Group He is exposed to some of the best management education in the world at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad and to all-around leadership exposure that is unique to the BASIX Group.
Mr. Bhagirathi Mohan Raj (Director)
A Finance Executive has over 27 years of experience in building and advising entities through complex, restructuring, consulting and capital market transactions. Is part of BASIX Social Enterprise Group (BASIX SEG) since Jan 1998 largely at parent company, group entities in different capacities and functions.
A strategic player supporting operations within consulting, analytics and business development. Has track record of contributions leading to improved financial performance, streamlining, re-organizing the process in the finance, HR, Operations for enhancing productivity and internal controls.
Presently Chief Financial Officer at Bhartiya Samruddhi Investments and Consulting Services Ltd, the parent company of the BASIX SEG engaged in Investments in group companies, strategic advice and extending consulting services in the field of livelihoods through strategic business units namely Strategic Initiatives, Institutional Development Services for Livelihood Promotion, Micro insurance and Social Protection, Inclusive Financial Services, MIS and IT Solutions, Skill Building etc.
As a Corporate resource holds additional responsibility as Chief Financial Officer of Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Ltd, an NBFC in the BASIX SEG since January 01 2020 onwards and Director at BASIX Municipal Waste Ventures Ltd.
The other responsibilities include nurturing the entities in the group in finance, accounting, audit, direct and indirect taxes, setup systems and internal controls, corporate governance matter, ensure statutory compliance with various regulatory bodies.
A post-graduate in Commerce & Financial Management with a Post-Graduation Program in Finance from IIM, Indore. An alumnus of IIM, Indore and ISB, Hyderabad.