Ashish Dhawan
Chairman

Ashish Dhawan is the Founder and CEO of Central Square Foundation (CSF). He worked for twenty years in the investment management business and ran one of India's leading private equity funds, ChrysCapital. In June 2012, he left his full time role at ChrysCapital to start CSF. Ashish is an MBA with distinction from Harvard University and a dual bachelor's (BS/BA) holder with Magna Cum Laude honours from Yale University. He is on the India Advisory Board of Harvard and a member of Yale’s Development Council.

Ashish serves on the board of several non-profits including Akanksha Foundation, 3.2.1 Education Foundation, Teach For India, Centre for Civil Society, Janaagraha and GiveLife. As Founder and CEO,Central Square Foundation, Ashish hopes to bring a fresh impact-based approach to philanthropy in India. He was recently recognized as the NextGen Leader in Philanthropy by Forbes India.

Ajay Kumar Jain
Administrator, Web & IT

Having worked with a media house, and as a freelancer, Ajay has work experience of over a decade. He manages all our online properties and handles our social media initiatives.

• Ajay's website

Andrew Humphries
Associate, Programs

Andrew works with CCS Academy team. He has a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe and an M.Ed. from Endicott College. He has taught in private Montessori and Charter schools in the United States and gained experience as a Socratic Practice facilitator. He has been a Socratic Practice leader at Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute and has a particular interest in the “Austrian” tradition of social science.

Bibhuti Bhardwaj
Field Coordinator, School Choice Campaign

Bibhuti manages field level research and coordination for the School Choice Campaign. He is a graduate of Delhi University and has a Master’s in Political Science and Rural Development with over nine years of experience in research, training, education, livelihood & e-governance. He previously managed operations for the World Bank funded Multipurpose Household Survey - Smart card project for Government of Uttarakhand. He has coordinated various projects on education, health and livelihood funded by Aga Khan, CIF, OXFAM and NABARD.

Parth J Shah
President

Parth’s research and advocacy work focus on the themes of economic freedom (law, liberty and livelihood campaign), choice and competition in education (fund students, not schools), property rights approach for the environment (terracotta vision of stewardship), and good governance (new public management and the duty to publish). He has published extensively in international and Indian journals, on various topics from currency regulation to education policy. He holds a PhD in Economics from Auburn University, and taught at the University of Michigan.

• Parth's Website

Amit Gordon
Associate Director, Operations and Finance

Amit has over 13 years of experience in the development sector in issues ranging from Child Rights, Gender Justice, to Poverty Housing and Health. He has worked with the British Council, Habitat for Humanity, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, and most recently, with World Vision.

Sindhu Verma
Associate, Administration

Sindhu has done her MBA in Finance & HR from AmitySchool of Distance Learning in 2010. She was previously associated with World Association for Small and Medium Enterprises (WASME) –a non-profit organization that works for SMEs. At CCS, she manages our front office and provides administrative support to the entire team.

Sadaf Hussain
Associate, Programs

Sadaf graduated in Advertising and Marketing from St. Xavier's College, Ranchi and has a Master's Diploma in Animation. He is a CCS graduate and was coordinator for Friends of Freedom and Liberal Youth Forum in Ranchi. After working with Sanmarg Newspaper and DA Media Consultant in Ranchi, he moved to New Delhi to work with CCS to promote liberal ideas through the Academy’s public policy courses and programs.

Amit Kumar Gond
Associate, Jeevika Campaign

Amit Kumar Gond holds a Master’s degree in Social work and has worked in the social development sector for over four years. He specialises in working with communities for improving health, micro-finance, welfare schemes, human rights and gender disparity. He has worked in Bihar with DISHA, in Uttar Pradesh with UNICEF, and in Rajasthan with National Rural Health Mission.

Amit Chandra
National Coordinator, Jeevika Campaign

Amit has worked as a youth mobilizer for the past couple of years and has motivated hundreds of youth to take up civil society initiatives. He graduated with a bachelor’s in in Commerce and a master’s in Social Work. Amit has worked at the community radio of Guelph University in Canada, and has also worked with “Society for Promotion of Youth and Masses”, Haryana in assessing of micro financial status of self-help groups of women before joining CCS. He holds a Think Tank MBA from Atlas Economic Research Foundation, USA.

Work with us

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Work with us

See details and Apply Now!

Work with us

Come join our team! See Available opportunities

Work with us

Come join our team! See Available opportunities

Bhupinder Singh
Assistant Manager, Office

Bhupinder is one of CCS’ oldest team members. He is a graduate of Kurukshetra University and currently doing a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from IMT, Ghaziabad. He has more than seven years of experience in administrative functions including handling office and database management.

Shantanu Gupta
Associate Director, Advocacy

Shantanu has led large scale education programs (remedial education, SMCs, Early childhood education, school excellence program) for Naandi Foundation and worked for strengthening governance structures for child rights with UNICEF. He is an engineer by training, and has a MBA from from XLRI and MA in Development & Governance from University of Sussex. Before moving to the development sector, Shantanu worked as a process consulting expert in the private sector. At CCS, Shantanu manages state-level advocacy in education.

Anamika Pathak
Associate, Administration & Accounts

Anamika holds a Bachelor’s in Commerce and a Master’s in sociology. She has been working in the development sector since 2001 in different capacities. She started work with Chetna, an NGO working with street children in Delhi. She worked with Street Educator from 2001 to 2003 as Education Coordinator and moved on to focus on adiministration and accounts from 2005. She now manages CCS’ finances and administration.

Rashmi Sinha
Associate Director, School Choice Campaign

Rashmi is M.Ed, and has a Doctorate degree in Education ( Education of Cerebral Palsied Children). In November, 2008 she was recognized by Education World, a national monthly educational news magazine, as among 50 Leaders Redefining Indian Education. She was also a Member of NCF 2005. Prior to joining CCS, Rashmi worked with the Azim Premji Foundation as Program Lead in the Institute for Assessment and Accreditation New Delhi. Rashmi has over 18 years of professional work experience – in teaching, women’s empowerment, anti-human trafficking. She has also been the State Program Director, Mahila Samakhya, where she was instrumental in establishing Kasturba Gandhi Balika Schools (KGBV) in 16 districts of the state of U.P. At CSS, Rashmi works on Education policy, research and advocacy.

Avinash Chandra
Associate Editor, azadi.me

Avinash Chandra has a post graduate degree in Journalism and Mass Communication, and has a diploma in digital video production. Avinash has five years experience working with Dainik Jagran (world's largest reading daily Hindi newspaper), Rashtirya Sahara and Amar Ujala. He has also worked for All India Radio, Doordarshan, Pragya TV and various production houses. As a journalist, he has covered health, art and culture, education, and water, among various beats. He is Associate Editor of azadi.me, our Hindi language portal.

Srijan Bandyopadhyay
Associate, Programs

Srijan completed his BSc Chemistry from Bristol University and returned to India to explore the development sector. After returning to India in 2011, he joined CCS as a volunteer for the School Choice National Conference, and then worked as a program assistant on Freedom Caravan. He previously worked part time in sales and also interned at the Education Centre of Australia. Srijan works on the Academy team, and helps organise events related to the school choice campaign.

Akanksha Bapna
Sr Research Fellow

Akanksha has worked with the Haryana State Government Department of School Education to build capacity for evidence-based policy making. She has researched teachers' time utilization and various components of the Right to Education Act. Akanksha holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge and a Masters' degree in International Education Policy from Harvard University. At CCS she will be focusing on primary studies and analysis of data from our projects.

Daphne Vallado
Associate, Programs (Marketing)

Daphne Vallado graduated from Jesus and Mary with a B.com Hons Degree in May 2010 and have been working with KPMG as a consultant with the Governance & Risk Compliance Practice since. At JMC, she was the president of the student body, and was heavily involved in extra curricular activities like debates, college festivals, theatre etc. At CCS, she will help us increase the outreach and brand visibility of Academy, especially ipolicy.

Baishali Bomjan
Associate Director, CCS Academy & Asia Centre for Enterprise

Baishali heads Centre for Civil Society's Academy which conducts all educational and outreach programs of the Centre. She has designed and managed several international and national programs, certificate courses for journalists and edited several publications of the Centre. She is also Atlas Economic Research Foundation's representative for Asia and leads the Asia Centre for Enterprise that will assist Atlas in discovering, assessing, and training talented young people, and inspiring them to devote their careers to advancing liberty in their home country or region.

Having worked extensively in both the development sector and the print media in Nepal and India, her work profile includes serving as the Director of Nuns Welfare Foundation of Nepal, Editor of Spark (corporate magazine) and Assistant Editor of the boss and VOW (Voice of Women), Nepal's leading business and women's magazines respectively. She holds an MSc in Zoology from the University of North Bengal, India, Think Tank MBA from Atlas and is especially interested in project incubation, strategic planning and communications.

Abhishek Bhattacharya
Associate, Advocacy

Abhishek is an engineer by training. His passion in Politics led him to switch gears and take up the LAMP Fellowship conducted by PRS Legislative Research. Under the fellowship, he worked for a year with Dr. P.L. Punia (MP & Chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Castes). He worked on Parliamentary Questions/Bill Debates/Committee etc and was in-charge of seeking and overseeing CSR related activities in MP’s constituency. At CCS, Abhishek works on advocating for school choice with political leaders and government officials.

Kumar Anand
Sr Associate, Research

Kumar has a Masters’ degree in Economics from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. He is working at CCS in public policy related research and writing. Before joining the Centre, he has worked with the Macro/Finance team at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi and with Hong Kong based Asianomics Limited, an independent macroeconomic research company.

Urvashi Kapuria
Associate, Research

Urvashi completed her Bachelors in Sociology from Delhi University. While in College she was an active member of the college Theatre society and has worked with two theatre companies thus far. After completing her graduation she joined her family business and simultaneously also interned with Snehi, an NGO working on the Collective mental health of a Society and with CCS as part of its Non- Summer research Internship program. She also volunteered with CCS for various events. She is now a full time employee at CCS where she will be conducting research in the field of Public Policy.

Arvind Ilamaran
Associate, Research

Arvind is a native of Chennai, Tamilnadu. Graduated in Instrumentation and Control Engineering from National Institute of Technology-Tiruchirapalli in 2010. For more than two years he was employed with ONGC Petro-additions Limited in Gujarat. He is also a member of Freedom Team of India and Youth for Policy and Dialogue.

Subhalakshmi D
Senior Manager, Advocacy

Subha has worked with GE/Genpact, a rural vocational training school and the Unique ID Authority of India in a mix of program management, process improvement, organisation & people development roles. She holds a PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad and is a certified Black Belt in the Six Sigma methodology. At CCS, she works on advocacy relating to Livelihoods and specifically manages the Skill Voucher pilot.

Manasi Bose
Associate, Development and Communications

Manasi completed her Masters in Social Psychology and Communication from London School of Economics in 2012. Prior to going to London for her Masters she worked with The YP Foundation for two years from 2008-2010, where she graduated from being a volunteer to Project Head of VOICES – The School project. She has a keen interest in reading, writing, theatre, travel, psychology and philosophy. She is an associate in the Development and Communications team at CCS.

Rahul Singh
Associate, Research

Rahul graduated from IIT Kanpur with a B.Tech degree in Bio-engineering in 2010. He has interned as a researcher at National Institute of Genetics, Japan and NCBS, Bangalore. He also worked as a consultant with a global IT Consultancy called ThoughtWorks for past two years. Recently after being part of the Jagriti Yatra 2012, he joined CCS as an Associate in Research. His interests lie in transforming the education system, by bringing in more disruptive methods in education.

Mehek Rastogi
Associate, Campaign

Mehek has her MA in Poverty and Development from IDS, University of Sussex. She has previously worked with the centre to promote liberal ideas through the Academy’s public policy programs. She is currently working on the NISA project to promote quality and access among budget private schools in India. She is also working with the research team to better understand the challenges and successes of inclusive education under the section 12 of the RTE act.

Sanjukta Basu
Associate, Research

Sanjukta Basu is a graduate from Hansraj college, Delhi and post graduate from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune in Economics in 2013. Though she has spent her entire life in Delhi but is originally from a small town called Burdhman in West Bengal. She is working as a research associate in the school choice campaign at Centre for civil society.