Governance & Leadership
Board members
Sumit Bose
Mr. Sumit Bose was the former Union Finance Secretary and Revenue Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India till his retirement from the Indian Administrative Service, in March 2014. He was also Secretary in the Departments of Expenditure and Disinvestment, Ministry of Finance.
Currently, he serves as an Independent Director on the Boards of several companies and on the Boards of various non-profits such as Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Foundation to Educate Girls Globally, Parivaar Education Society, Charities Aid Foundation, Bharatiya Rural Livelihoods Foundation and Peepul and is the Chairperson of Jal Seva Charitable Foundation.
Mr. Bose was educated at the Doon School, Dehradun, St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and the London School of Economics.
Currently, he serves as an Independent Director on the Boards of several companies and on the Boards of various non-profits such as Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Foundation to Educate Girls Globally, Parivaar Education Society, Charities Aid Foundation, Bharatiya Rural Livelihoods Foundation and Peepul and is the Chairperson of Jal Seva Charitable Foundation.
Mr. Bose was educated at the Doon School, Dehradun, St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and the London School of Economics.
Ireena Vittal
Ms. Ireena Vittal is an independent consultant and advisor. She was a partner with McKinsey & Co, for 16 years. Currently, she is an independent director on several boards including Wipro, HDFC, and Godrej Consumer Products Limited. Ms. Vittal is also on the boards of several non-profits including the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Janaagraha, and Foundation to Educate Girls Globally. Prior to McKinsey, Ms. Vittal worked at MaxTouch and Nestle. She is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
Dr Sara Ahmed
Holding a PhD in environmental sociology from the University of Cambridge, Sara was a faculty member at IRMA, and a Senior Program Specialist, with IDRC’s agriculture and environment programme in Asia. With more than 30 years of experience on gender, water and governance issues in India, Sara is currently an Adjunct Professor at IISER-Pune and the Founder of the Living Waters Museum, a virtual repository on India’s water heritage. She was the Chairperson of the Gender and Water Alliance and is on the board of Wetlands International South Asia and the Global Network of Water Museums.
Nitin Nagesh Pai
Mr. Nitin Pai is Co-founder and Director of the Takshashila Institution, an independent networked public policy think tank. Prior to setting up Takshashila, Mr. Pai spent more than a decade with the Singapore government shaping its media & communication strategies in the age of the internet and social media. He was closely involved in Singapore’s National broadband initiatives and liberalisation of the telecom sector.
Mr. Pai is a gold medallist from Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy from where he obtained a Master in Public Administration (MPA) degree. He was a Singapore Airlines-Neptune Orient Lines undergraduate scholar at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and is an alumnus of National College, Bangalore. He relocated to India in August 2012 to pursue his passion with the Takshashila project.
Mr. Pai is a gold medallist from Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy from where he obtained a Master in Public Administration (MPA) degree. He was a Singapore Airlines-Neptune Orient Lines undergraduate scholar at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and is an alumnus of National College, Bangalore. He relocated to India in August 2012 to pursue his passion with the Takshashila project.
Dr Anup Wadhawan
Anup Wadhawan served in the Uttar Pradesh/Uttarakhand cadre of the Indian Administrative Service and retired as Secretary Commerce, Government of India in June 2021. He served as a Director in the Prime Minister’s Office between 2001 and 2005 and was subsequently Joint Secretary, Capital Markets; Joint Secretary, Banking, Insurance and Pensions; and Director General of Foreign Trade prior to becoming an Additional Secretary and then Secretary in the Commerce Department. Anup also worked in the Water and Sanitation Programme of the World Bank in New Delhi. He has an MA and a PhD in Economics.
Senior management team
VK Madhavan
Chief Executive
VK Madhavan
Chief Executive
Following a Master’s in International Politics from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1991, Madhavan commenced working with the Urmul Rural Health Research and Development Trust in Bikaner. Since then, he has worked with ActionAid and The Hunger Project and subsequently spent eight years working in Uttarakhand with Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (Chirag). Prior to joining WaterAid India, Madhavan was the Managing Director of Skills Education Private Limited. He is also a TED Global Fellow and a TED Senior Fellow. An avid reader, he enjoys music and tweets as @CeWateraidindia.
Preeti Majumdar
Director – Finance & IT
Preeti Majumdar
Director – Finance & IT
Preeti is a Chartered Accountant with twenty years of experience in the development sector. She started her professional career with CRY India in Kolkata in 1999 and was most recently (June 2023) the Chief Financial Officer for Cipla Foundation in Mumbai.
Preeti possesses skills and expertise with regard to financial management and compliance for the development sector as well as requirements of corporate social responsibility. Preeti is familiar with direct implementation and programme efforts. Preeti has worked in key managerial and leadership positions. Her strengths include financial planning, budgeting, grant and partnership management and system strengthening. In her leisure, Preeti loves to cook and to travel!
Vikas Kataria
Director – Resource Mobilisation & Communications
Vikas Kataria
Director – Resource Mobilisation & Communications
Vikas has over 23 years of experience in the banking and not-for-profit sector. Prior to joining WaterAid India, he was associated with CARE India as the Executive Director for Fundraising, Marketing & Communications, and HelpAge India as a Director; building strategic alliances and initiatives for CSR. Vikas was with Citibank NA for over a decade holding different business portfolios and also with General Motors for about five years. A certified Director for Corporate Governance, CSR, Social Broker and Impact Accelerator, Vikas holds dual Master’s Degrees in Psychology and Business Economics as well as several leadership trainings from Premier Indian & global institutes like IIM Ahmedabad, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth. Vikas is fond of reading and plays golf.
Meenal Patole
Director - Programmes Implementation
Meenal Patole
Director - Programmes Implementation
Meenal is an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. She has a diverse professional experience of over 25 years and has worked with leading national and international organisations such as the British Council, MCRIL Pvt. Ltd, CARE India, ACTED, and ACCESS Development Services. Meenal co-founded a Microfinance Institution and led it for a decade. She was also a Board Member of the Micro-Finance Institutions Network India and has led several consulting assignments. Her thematic areas of work primarily include financial inclusion, livelihoods, women empowerment, humanitarian disaster response and leveraging public-private partnerships for advocacy and opportunities for low-income and vulnerable sections of society.
Biswanath Sinha
Director - Policy and Technical Support
Biswanath Sinha
Director - Policy and Technical Support
Biswanath Sinha is a social development specialist with over 27 years of diverse experience across strategy, partnership, grant-making, program designing and scaling up, and policy formulation. Prior to joining WaterAid India, he has worked in the Tata Trusts for 17 years where he has played a leadership role in thematic engagements in Rural Livelihoods, Energy, Health Care, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Promotion and Sports for Development. As a founding member and governing board member of various nonprofit organisations, he has played a key leadership role in creating some high-performing organisations. He has also worked in PRADAN, Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD), and Sa-Dhan. If not at work, this engineering graduate can be found on a soccer field.