Governance & Leadership

Board members

Sumit Bose

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.

Ireena Vittal

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.

Mathew Cherian

Mathew Cherian

Pilani and is an alumnus of India’s 1st batch of rural managers from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand. Mathew was the former Chief Executive of Helpage India where he served for 17 years till his retirement in 2020. He is a Trustee of Guild of Services, Centre for Advocacy and Research, and is the Managing Trustee of Guide Star. He is also the Chairperson of Care India which works with 5 million marginalised women and girl children.

Dr Sara Ahmed

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

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.

Dr Anup Wadhawan

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.

Archana Rathore

Director – Finance and IT

Archana Rathore

Director – Finance and IT

Archana brings on board two decades of experience primarily in the private sector. Post completing her Chartered Accountancy in 1998, she has worked with diverse organizations, commencing with the BBC Media Action Trust. Most recently, before joining WaterAid India, Archana was with DENTSPLY India Private Limited as their Business Controller. Archana also holds a CPA degree. Her core competencies include financial management, project management, financial analysis, budgeting and forecasting. Archana is fond of reading and cooking.

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.