Our Team
Over the past 10 years, we have grown into a 300+ member team. Our team works tirelessly to ensure that students from marginalized communities have an opportunity to receive access to affordable and high-quality education, fulfilling their dreams.
Executive Trustees
Vandana Goyal, co-CEO
Vandana Goyal is the Managing Trustee at Avanti Fellows, leading all operations and fundraising strategies. In addition to her work at Avanti, Vandana is a Board Member and former Chief Executive Officer of the Akanksha Foundation. In her capacity as CEO at Akanksha Foundation, she led a team to serve 21 schools with an aim to educate 9,300 children in India. Vandana graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a degree in Economics.
Akshay Saxena, co-CEO
Akshay Saxena is the Co-Founder of Avanti Fellows, and an Ashoka fellow. He was awarded the Draper Richards Kaplan Fellowship and Echoing Green Fellowship in 2012 for his work at Avanti. He also has significant experience as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in India, and in project implementation with UNWFP and the International Save the Children Alliance. Akshay graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from IIT Bombay.
Trustees
Ashank Desai
Ashank Desai is the founder, vice chairman, and managing director of Mastek Ltd., a global technology services company offering digital services and software for public and private enterprises in the UK, US, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. He is widely recognized as an IT industry veteran and is one of the founder members and a past chairman of NASSCOM. He was a former president of Asian Oceanian Computing Industry Organisation (ASOCIO), an association of 20 countries.
Mr. Desai has been involved in CII as committee member, a member of the Maharashtra State Security Council. He is the vice chairman at the governing board of Bombay First, an NGO working on the mission to make Mumbai a world class city. He is a member of governing board of IIM Ahmedabad, a member of governing board & society of Goa Institute of Management (GIM) for the last 11 years, and now the president of GIM Society. He is a member of governing board of IIIT, Bhubaneswar & Goa Engineering College, in addition to being vice chairman of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) for the Goa Government. He serves on the advisory boards of SJM School of Management and as vice-chairman for the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) at his alma mater, IIT Bombay.
Recently, he was felicitated by the prime minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, for his contribution to NASSCOM and the IT Industry over the last 25 years. He has been conferred with the “Distinguished Alumnus” award from IIT Bombay and “Fellow of the Society” by Computer Society of India (CSI) in recognition of his services to the Indian IT Industry as an entrepreneur and for his contribution to education. He has also been presented with the Honourable Contributors Award by ASOCIO and is the only Indian to receive this recognition twice. He was also conferred with the Outstanding Entrepreneur Award at the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards (APEA) 2010 India.
Piyush Tewari
Piyush Tewari is a tri-sector leader with 15 years of experience in building and scaling government, corporate, and social enterprises. He currently serves as the CEO of SaveLIFE Foundation (SLF) and has been instrumental in leading it to several policy wins and on-ground impact since founding it 2008. Previously, Piyush led the India operations of Calibrated Healthcare, a LA-based private equity fund. Prior to Calibrated, Piyush served on the founding team of India Brand Equity Fund, an initiative of the Prime Minister of India to promote India as a globally competitive investment destination. Piyush is an Ashoka Fellow, an Echoing Green Fellow, and a Rolex Laureate. He has been profiled by The New York Times, National Geographic and Time Magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from Delhi University.
Advisory Board
Utsav Baijal
Utsav Baijal is Partner and Head of India Private Equity at Apollo, where he also manages AION Capital Partners, a strategic partnership between Apollo and ICICI Bank Ltd. that advises on India-focused investments. Utsav has worked across private equity, mezzanine and credit investments across the US and Asian markets and has served on the board of directors of IGT Solutions, Clix Capital, PlanetCast Media Services, Welspun Corp, and DishTV.
Prior to joining Apollo in 2008, Utsav was with the private equity team at Bain Capital. Previously, he was a consultant with McKinsey & Co. across the New Delhi and Hong Kong offices and one of the founding members of the Firm’s corporate finance practice in India.
Utsav graduated from St. Stephen’s College/University of Delhi with a degree in Economics and received his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). He is a Fellow of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and an Aspen Fellow.
The Management Team
Panchali Dutta is the Project Lead for Sankalp and Program Head for the Ghar Pe School Initiative at Avanti Fellows. She has an M.Sc (Hons) in Physics from Miranda House, Delhi University.
Pritam Sukumar is the Technical Lead at Avanti Fellows. He is involved in building fast, maintainable, and scalable tech infrastructure.
Saksham Srivastava is the Curriculum Head and Program Head for JNV. He currently leads the Curriculum for Avanti's Gharpeschool campaign, leads Operations for Avanti's JNV Program, and manages Avanti's largest online classroom intervention (10,000 students).
Priyanka Reddy is the Head of Fundraising at Avanti Fellows. With an experience of 12+ years focused on Marketing, Sales, Business Development, Operations and Project Management, she is creating product roadmaps and driving successful launches of new projects.
Agny Ganesh is Program Head at Avanti Fellows and leads operations for the JNV program. Prior to joining Avanti, Agny was a Gandhi Fellow and a soft skill trainer.