Founders, Team and Board Members
Dr. Lalitha Iyer | Managing Trustee
She is Gowri’s mother and a consultant with a special interest in institutional change facilitation in social sector, formerly Director of Bharatiya Samruddhi Financial Services Ltd, of the Basix group, a Board Member of Sathi (Bangalore), (Ananda Bharathi Hyderabad) and former Dean ( Professional Excellence) Indian Society for Applied Behavioral Sciences (ISABS). She has been the external anchor for the Roopantaran initiative of Sir Ratan TataTrust.
She is the author of “The Strategic Business Spiral” (Sage, 2001) and has co-edited “Institutions Consultants and Transformation – Cases Studies from the Development Sector” (Sage, 2009)and co-authored ‘Whose Sustainability Counts? BASIX Long March from Microfinance to Livelihoods” (Sage, 2012) and “Rescuing Railway Children” (Sage, 2013), “The Learning Crucible” ISABS (2015) besides many papers.
She worked as an officer in SBI for over two decades, headed Vidyaranya, a progressive school in Hyderabad for three years (1998-2001) and was a consultant in Thinksoft Consultants Hyderabad from 2001 to 2009. She moved to Bangalore in 2009 and works as an independent consultant now.
Smriti Kedia | Founder Trustee
Smriti is a consultant with special interest in enterprise development, menstrual health and labour rights’. She has worked in various states of India with rural communities to design interventions strategies and curriculum, conduct training and research on her subjects.
Some of the organizations she has worked for include Government of India, Tata Trusts, European Union, UNFPA and IIT Madras. Smriti holds a Masters in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and an Engineering degree from University of Pune. She worked with Naandi Foundation Hyderabad till 2010 and moved to Udaipur, Rajasthan thereafter. She is passionate about travelling, theatre and working with people, bringing energy to everything she does.
Smriti Kedia joined Sadhna in November 2020 and took over as CEO in February 2021. Sadhna is a women’s handicraft enterprise started by Seva Mandir (an NGO) in 1988 with an aim to provide alternative income to women in the Udaipur and Rajsamand districts of South Rajasthan.
As the handicraft industry has been severely affected by the pandemic, Smriti is committed to pulling Sadhna out of this situation and she is confident they will make progress. Smriti has diverse roles in managing this social enterprise. Sadhna is a production and retail house together with its roots in women empowerment. This combination being Smriti’s favourite, she believes there is so much to learn and explore.
Shanti Yechuri | Trustee
She is Gowri’s French teacher at the Alliance Française de Hyderabad and mentor. She is a post graduate in French who worked as a teacher and translator before she moved into the Non-Profit sector.
Currently an independent consultant based in Hyderabad, she earlier worked with HMRI, Hyderabad and ThinkSoft Consultants. She is interested in continuing professional education for leadership in non-profits and social enterprises.
She has a wealth of experience in training and project management for large system change. She has been trained and certified as an Organizational Change Facilitation Practitioner (OCFP) by the HID forum, Bangalore and has a PGCHRM from XLRI, Jamshedpur. Shanti Yeachuri’s specializes in large scale change facilitation, process standardization, program management, institutional development and capacity development.
Girish Mahale | Advisor | Mentor
Girish is an Education Scientist and founded Pratyaya EduResearch Lab (a not-for-profit action research organization) in 2013.
Since then, he has been involved in the education sector in varied settings – developing “Foundation of Education” modules, developing pedagogical module framework for primary till high school levels, designing student driven learning process & spaces inside schools and communities and capacity building of educational leader at various levels ranging from school student volunteers, graduate student volunteers, in-service teachers and grassroots community leaders working in education. Prior to initiating Pratyaya, Girish worked in R&D Engineering in Microprocessor Development at IBM, Bangalore and post-graduated from IIT Khargpur. He leads Pratyaya EduResearch Lab and is intensively working in Pandhurna Block of Chhindwara District of Madhya Pradesh.
His work in education involves developing “project-based-learning” pedagogical modules and the processes for nurturing a “Self-sustainable Educational Ecosystem” at village or town level, and that too within the existing system and with the given local resources.
Priyanshi Sharma | Program Manager
Priyanshi is our Program Manager based in Udaipur. She is associated with Plustrust since 2019. She is an Electrical Engineer & Freelance qualitative Researcher and did her B.tech From GITS, Udaipur.
She decided to join Plustrust to be a part of the social development sector.
She decided to join Plustrust to be a part of the social development sector.
She feels that at some point in life, everyone should be able to contribute some of their time for the development of society because that is what makes the world a better place for everyone.
Prior to joining Plustrust, she worked as a Research and Development Engineer in Pyrotech Electronics and has done major projects like light designing for AAI Agartala and AAI Vadodara during her tenure in Pyrotech.
Vasudha Kapoor | Hub Manager | Ujjain
Vasudha is our Hub Manager at Plustrust Caring Friends Adda, Ujjain. She is also a co-founder of ‘Mera gaon Meri duniya’, a grassroot level organization that works in the rural areas of Madhya Pradesh on education transformation through local youth leadership building. Being a Post Graduate in Human Development and Childhood Studies from the University of Delhi, she has an immense academic interest in gender and human development.
In the past, she has worked with Ministry of Women and Child Development, Himachal Pradesh towards building structures to empower children in correctional settings in rural areas of Himachal Pradesh. A project with Delhi AIDS Control Society with sex workers in east Delhi and children residing in slum settings of central Delhi has been another area of work.
She has closely worked with Save the Children, Delhi State Office to understand social upliftment initiatives of the organization through photo documentation of various functional programs. Vasudha is a pahadi at heart who loves to discover and tell stories. She enjoys getting into the details and focuses on depth in learning. She is an avid reader and collector of stories by Ruskin Bond and Roald Dahl.
Disha Mehta | Hub Associate | Ujjain
Disha belongs to Nagda in ujjain District . She did graduation from vikram university ujjain . she is doing Masters in social work (Msw ) from madhav college Ujjain from (vikram University) She is keen to work with NGO .she would like to extend herself to different sections of society. She is working as associate from December 2021. She is enjoy work with Plustrust and developed more confidence to manage data and maintain relationships with aspiring women fellows and Alumni .she likes reading books, travelling , studying and spending time with family.
Moin Khan | Social Media & IT Manager
Joined as a part time Social media manager in January 2023, he is now full time IT and Social media manager for Plustrust. He is an Electrical engineer and an experiential travel enthusiast graduated from GITS Udaipur.
Before joining Plustrust Moin worked as travel consultant and worked with Mahindra & Mahindra to build a platform to book adventure activities in India.
Amita Chouhan | CHE Coordinator | Ujjain
Amita belongs to Koyal, a small village in Ujjain (M.P.). She studied till 12 and got married. She wanted to pursue nursing but could not do it. In 2022 she was selected for the pilot Batch of CHE. Since then she never turned back. Currently she is working as a CHE coordinator for Plustrust.