Vikram Singh Mehta
Vikram Singh Mehta is the Chair of the Rama Mehta Trust. He started his career with the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1978. He resigned in 1980. Later he returned to the public sector Oil India from 1984 to 1988. He was Chairman of the Shell Group of Companies in India from 1994 to 2012. Vikram is currently Chairman of the think tank CSEP Research Foundation (Formerly Brookings Institution India Center). He is an independent director of several Companies including Larsen and Toubro; Mahindra and Mahindra; and Colgate-Palmolive India ltd. he is also a member of the board of overseers of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; Tufts University.
Vikram was recipient of Asia House's Businessmen of the year award for 2010, and Asia Centre for corporate governance and sustainability ‘s Award for Best Independent Director for 2016.
Vikram has a BA from Delhi university; BA / MA from Oxford university and an MA from Fletcher School, Tufts University.
Vijaya Khan
Vijaya Khan lives in Lucknow and has largely remained within the family context. She founded a small women’s group called Qilasaaz in 1992. Her late mother, Rama Mehta, was undoubtedly the inspiration behind this initiative. She believed that for a woman even five rupees every month, if it was regular and unconnected to any male member of the family, was not insignificant. Qilasaaz produces fine hand embroidered and hand stitched items on hand woven fabrics. Vijaya Khan has been long concerned with the education of all who came within her ambit. Some have catapulted to becoming software engineers, architects, chefs and other professionals. Humble backgrounds were no impediment if they were given the opportunity.
Ajay Singh Mehta
Shri Ajay S. Mehta is currently the President of Vidya Bhawan Society – an educational institution based in Udaipur. He was a member of the Rajasthan State Planning Board from 2012 to 2014. He was Executive Director of the National Foundation for India (NFI), a philanthropic trust that supports civic action for promoting democracy and social justice from July, 2001 to May, 2011. Before joining NFI in 2001, Ajay Mehta was General Secretary of the Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development (AVARD), a national association of voluntary organisations in India. Between 1985 and 1999 he served in Seva Mandir, a Voluntary Organisation that works in rural areas and small townships to promote democracy around issues to do with health, education, natural resource conservation and building community organisations.
Prior to joining Seva Mandir he worked with the Indian Railways Traffic Service from 1980-85. He did his M.Phil (Economics) from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1978.
Hemraj Bhati
Hem Raj Bhati was born in Jhadol, a tribal block of Udaipur district. He graduated in geography from Mohan Lal Sukhadia University in Udaipur. He joined Seva Mandir, a voluntary organisation based in Udaipur, at a young age. He served there for over 3 decades and retired as its General Secretary in 2010. During these years, he not only established Seva Mandir’s work in two of the remotest tribal blocks of Udaipur, but also laid strong foundations of three major programs – education, forestry and the People’s Management School. In 1996, he worked with Noble laureates, Abhijit Bannerji and Michael Kramer to help crystallise their very first RCT in India (which was conducted at Seva Mandir). This led to a 13 year log partnership around several research projects, between Seva Mandir and J-PAL.
After retiring from Seva Mandir, he is now associated with Vidya Bhawan Society in Udaipur. He is also the chair of Udaipur Urja and Umed Mal Lodha Memorial Trust.
Anil Mehta
Anil is an MBA from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research and a graduate in Economics. He has worked with large institutions in the Mortgage, Banking and Insurance space. He has led consumer credit and business functions and helped build multiple new businesses. Anil has worked with HDFC Ltd, Bank of America, American Express, ANZ Bank and Max New York Life Insurance Co.
Anil is the Chairman and Non-Executive Director of India Shelter Finance Corporation (ISFC), which was founded with the mission to improve the reach and quality of housing to middle and lower segments based on his deep understanding of risk evaluation and to create a social impact in the life of customers.
Kamini Mahadevan
Kamini Mahadevan was with the Penguin Group, including Pearson Education India, for almost two decades. She was Senior Editor, Penguin Books India and retired from there as Consultant Editor. In between, she was the Managing Editor, Pearson Education India.
At Penguin, she had the privilege of publishing several eminent and award-winning authors and translators, including U.R. Anantha Murthy, Romila Thapar, Shashi Tharoor, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Samanth Subramanian, and Leila Seth, as well as translators, Srinath Perur, and Archana Venkatesan. She has been on the jury for the Fiction and Non-fiction Hindu Lit Prize and was Chairperson of the latter.
For the past few years, she is involved in storytelling for special children at an inclusive school and setting up a library for them, besides with issues of inclusive education. She now lives in Bangalore with her family.
