Rakesh comes from the land of Birsa Munda - Ranchi Jharkhand. He was in his teens when Jharkhand got separated from Bihar. He enjoyed the urban tribal culture at the time of struggle of Jharkhand formation. He got the first experience of rural India in 2003, in Jahanbaj village in Bero Block of Ranchi where he observed how paddy is grown, diversity of forest, struggle between human and animals - life was different in the villages. This was alife-changing moment for him, when he decided that he wanted to build his career in this sector.
He completed his MBA in Rural Management from Xavier Institute of Social Services, Ranchi in 2004 and then worked on promoting women led federation and producer company in Tonk, Rajasthan with SRIJAN NGO. During this period, he also completed his certificate course on Livelihood and Marketing from Coady International Institute, Halifax, Canada.He later joined Tata Trust as lead Grant Manager, supporting more than 18 NGOs in Rajasthan on livelihood and micro-finance.
Rakesh was the pioneer to initiate any work on value chain. He has a knackfor taking risks and looking for challenges. With his nature of taking up challenging tasks, he was not satisfied and resigned from SRIJAN in 2014 to set up his own start-up with the idea of supporting farmers establishing direct linkswith the market. This was the time when seeds of Gramshree was sown, which has taken the shape now of Gramshree Foundation Trust.
Namita comes from a conservative middle-class family of Uttarakhand. Aftersecuring her B. Tech. in Civil Engineering from Gobind Ballabh Pant University ofAgriculture and Technology, India (2004), shejoinedan NGO and started working directly with under privileged women, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes' communities in the remotest areas of villages in India.
Her passion to collaborate with women and to build their capacity for larger good led her to sow seeds of Gramshree Foundation Trust along with Rakesh. Her strengths of grooming and nurturing professionals have helped Gramshree immensely to lay a strong foundation ofpeople with the right values.
Deepak has more than 16 years of consulting experience in the corporate sector for financial services industry. Deepak is an MBA in Finance and settled in Bangalore with his wife and their 10 years old son. He has been contributing to community development programs through the CSR initiatives in the organizations he worked for over the years. He comes from Ranchi, Jharkhand and is a childhood friend of Rakesh, the founder of Gramshree Foundation Trust. During one of his visits to Rajasthan, where he went to meet Rakesh in one of the tribal villages he was working as part of his Trust’s area of work and got to observe the contribution, Gramshree was making to the communities there. This is when Deepak decided to join Gramshree as a Trustee and help Rakesh and Namita in creating the impact for upliftment of these communities.
Ashok is an Agribusiness Professional, retired as the Chief General Manager of National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (NABARD) Head Office, Mumbai in 2017. He also holds the position of Senior Adviser BAIF Research and Development Foundation, he has been Adjunct Professor for School of Agribusiness Management, MIT World Peace University, Pune. He is the author of a book on ‘Emerging Trends in Agricultural Marketing in India. A Post Graduate in Agriculture, Mr. Ashok is from the 1980 batch of Indian Agricultural Research Institute New Delhi after a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Coimbatore (1978 batch) with additional qualifications in Agri-Business Management from Cornell University, USA as well as on Financing Micro Enterprises from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Reading, UK and in General Management, Human Resources Development & Training & Development. Mr. Ashok has had exposure of rural finance and agribusiness sector in several countries including Thailand, Kenya, China, Germany USA, Finland, and England.
He is senior Development Professional with more than 27 years of experience in Development Sector. He was a core Team Member of NRLM, when it was headed by Mr T. Vijay Kumar, Joint Secretary Ministry to Rural Development Government of India. He was the part of the foundation team of the World Bank-funded JEEViKA program, Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) and played critical role in taking up JEEViKA's operation on scale and building an effective human resource system. Currently, he is working with the Buddha Institute, New Delhi, and looking after two flagship programmes namely “the Buddha Fellowship” and "Investing in Future Leaders" in the eastern region of India.