Ashish Dhawan
Chairman

Co-Founder and Senior MD ChrysCapital Investment Advisors. Formerly at GP Investments, a $1 billion private equity fund in Brazil. Member of Advisory Board at Emerging Markets Private Equity Association. Serves as the Co-Chairman of Yale Entrepreneurship Fund. TiE Charter Member of the Mumbai Chapter.

Sujatha Muthayya
Associate Director, School Choice Campaign

Sujatha was one of the first students to attend CCS’ Liberty and Society. She has taught at Madras Christian College and completed a master's from LSE. She has helped incubate rural businesses at IIT Madras, built a platform for impact investment at Intellecap, and assisted Prof James Tooley build his chain of low cost schools in Hyderabad. Sujatha heads the School Choice Campaign at CCS, an advocacy effort for reforms in the k-12 segment.

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
Senior Coordinator, Programs

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. Amit is now responsible for expanding CCS Academy and increasing the reach of our programs.

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.

Bhuvana Anand
Director, Development & Operations

Bhuvana has worked extensively with civil society groups and donors in various countries, including India, Afghanistan, Sudan and USA, in designing development programs and executing research studies in economic growth, infrastructure provision, and public service delivery. She has had post-graduate training and experience in policy research and is especially interested in livelihood deregulation, access to finance, and community-based infrastructure development. She manages fundraising, external relations, new partnerships, and operations at CCS.

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.

Kartik Misra
Associate, School Choice Campaign

Kartik completed an MSc in Development Studies from the LSE and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics (Honours) from the University of Delhi. He has worked on a variety of socio-economic issues like education, political risk analysis and Corporate Social Responsibility with organizations like Blackwell Strategic Research, MIT-JPAL and Oxfam. His work with the School Choice Campaign involves research and state level advocacy.

Sana Kazi
Associate, Research

Sana joined CCS after completing her Master’s in Public Administration at LSE. During her degree, her research was focused on the relationship between education finance and educational outcomes and the effectiveness of Public Private Partnerships in the provision of education. She is currently studying government expenditure in education and analysing data from the pilot projects of the School Choice Campaign.

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Associate, Research
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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
Senior Coordinator, 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.

Satish Pednekar
Editor, azadi.me

Satish holds a post graduate degree in Hindi literature from Jiwaji University in Gwalior. Satish has been a journalist for over three decades, extensively working with Jansatta, a Hindi daily of Indian Express group, as news editor and special correspondent in New Delhi and Mumbai. He has written extensively on political, economic and social issues specially on left, obc, dalit and minority politics, education and devlopmental issues. At CCS he is the editor of Azadi, our liberal portal for HIndibhashis.

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.

Aprajita Sharma
Associate, Research

Aprajita has a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Economics the University of Rajasthan. She has worked as a volunteer with Pravah Jaipur Initiative and FAITH, a children’s home for HIV+ children. At CCS, Aprajita is focused on research for the Jeevika Campaign, where she is currently studying barriers to entry for street level professions such as cycle rickshaw plying.

Srijan Bandyopadhyay
Associate (Events), 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.

Dharmendra Kumar
Assistant, Programs

Dharmendra Kumar is Assistant, Programs at CCS. He holds a diploma in 3D Animation and Visual Effects. He is an expert with video editing, compositing, after effects with sound knowledge of 2D and 3D animation. At CCS he is helping to make our content, interviews, and lectures available in video form for easy dissemination and access to remote audiences.

Namrata Narayan
Associate, Communications

Namrata has recently moved to Delhi from Toronto to gain experience in the development sector. She has a B.A(H) in International Development Studies and specializes in South Asian politics and culture. In the past couple of years, she has worked with Ashoka Canada, IIMPACT and Cellex-C to build their brand, communicate their campaigns and projects and grow their market presence. At CCS, Namrata develops content for our editorials, promotional materials and projects, and provides support for our advocacy initiatives and donor relations to grow the CCS brand.

Akanksha Bapna
Coordinator, Research

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 manage and lead our research team, focusing on primary studies and analysis of data from our projects.

Uttara Balakrishnan
Associate, Research

Having graduated from Yale University in Masters in International and Development Economics in May 2011, Uttara's key interests are in economic development and public policy. Her Master’s Thesis dealt with analyzing the effectiveness of private schools in India using Treatment Selection Models. Her work with Global Development Network in Africa over the past year on agricultural policy has sharpened her research skills. At CCS, Uttara will work with the School Choice Campaign on our k-12 research agenda.