Ruchika Bahl, India
Ruchika joined Ashoka in 2003 to build and launch the Law For All Initiative. In her 13 years of development experience, she has worked on issues of human rights, women and law and rural finance with citizen sector groups and international agencies like the World Bank and GTZ, India. A British Chevening Scholar, she is a lawyer and also a member of the Delhi Bar Council. In addition, she holds a Master of Gender and Social Policy degree from the London School of Economics and a Master of Social Work degree from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Sohini Bhattacharya, India
Before coming to Ashoka Sohini worked with a premier health organization where she helped them launch a new program on income generation and micro-credit for rural women. With a national CSO, she worked with indigenous craftspeople, helping them gain first-hand insights on marketing. In 1996 Sohini helped an Ashoka Fellow to launch a gender rights centre.  In 2000 she joined Ashoka to help expand the Venture program and later as a Director, built systems, created a team and raised in-country resources. Sohini is the President of CREA, an organization working on enhancing women’s leadership and serves on the board of READ India, a social enterprise building self-serving rural communities through libraries.

Robin Bose, India
Once a Venture intern with Ashoka's global office, Robin returns as a Senior Intrapreneur in Delhi. Between his stints at Ashoka, he has worked in the US, UK, and India with corporate and civic sector organizations in finance, publishing, and public health. Robin also co-founded Global Partnerships for Activism and Cross-cultural Training (Global PACT), a network of young leaders solving self-identified problems in their communities. He helped develop Global PACT's core methods in Mongolia, facilitated its programs in the US, and helped lead its month-long all-Balkans workshops in 2005 and 2006. He holds a bachelor's degree in Economics and International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and is active with the Penn Club of India.

Sinee Chakthranont, Thailand
Sinee joined Ashoka in 1997 to launch Asia’s first Citizen Base Initiative, nurturing the citizen sector to formulate an agenda independent from government and international donors. As Country Representative since 1998, she has facilitated the fifth oldest Ashoka Fellowship, the Venture program, and the Southeast Asia network of partners. Sinee has been active in Thailand’s civic movement since the historic protests for democratic reforms in 1970s. She has extensive experience in cross-cultural work under difficult circumstances – with refugees, hilltribe minorities, slum residents, women and children. Sinee matches in-depth understanding of grassroots movements with her wide-ranging connections in Thailand and Southeast Asia.

Chris Cusano, Thailand
Chris Cusano is the Director of Ashoka's Entrepreneur-to-Entrepreneur program (E2E) in Asia. Chris joined Ashoka in 2000 after working for seven years with grassroots human rights organizations in Southeast Asia. Chris has specialized in the selection of new Fellows, increasing the volume of new elections we can handle, documenting Ashoka's unique selection criteria, and training staff in identifying cases of social entrepreneurship worldwide. Today, based in Thailand, Chris is helping Ashoka expand in Asia.

Tanya Jairaj, India
Tanya is a lawyer by training and has litigated with a leading Indian law firm for two years. Before joining Ashoka, she worked with several NGOs in India on issues such as child rights, good governance and education. She has also worked previously at the United Nations (Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs), New York, and, the National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi. Another hat Tanya has worn has been that of a grade school teacher. Prior to joining the Ashoka team in India, she interned at the DC office. Tanya works from the Ashoka Mumbai office.

Anuja Jaitly
A graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of London, Anuja joins Ashoka's Full Economic Citizenship program as Senior Intrapreneur. Prior to Ashoka, Anuja’s experience has included consulting, project management, and research in four continents across the private, public, citizen, academic, and government sectors.  Anuja has led initiatives to improve math and science education at the U.S. Department of Education, has provided higher education for refugees from Congo and Zimbabwe, distributed knowledge regarding the right to education in South Africa, and furthered the implementation of a World Health Organization study to eradicate polio in Uttar Pradesh, India.

Lily Paul, India
Lily Paul is the Director of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur program in India building the Ashoka Support Network of business people dedicated to supporting Ashoka and its leading social entrepreneurs. Lily also leads the Ashoka-Deshpande Foundation collaboration in the Hubli-Dharwad region. Previously, Lily led a unique social marketing initiative promoting social entrepreneurship through David Bornstein’s book ‘How to Change the World’. Lily has also been building Ashoka’s citizen base in India and helping social entrepreneurs collaborate with business and academia. Lily is a counselor who works with families and has co-founded ‘Chrysalis’, a training and counselling group that that works with adults and children to build life skills through workshops and counselling.

Dolon Sen, India
Dolon Sen joined Ashoka in 1998 and is now a Program Coordinator with Youth Venture. Prior to Ashoka, she taught in the primary section of a school meant for children from low income families. During her time with the Fellowship Program and now the Youth Initiative, she has worked closely with the team to help nurture collaborations and connections between Fellows and looks forward to doing interesting work with young people. She has a Masters in History from University of Delhi and works out of Ashoka's New Delhi office.

Vishnu Swathnathan, India
Vishnu joins Ashoka with more than 14 years of experience as Entrepreneur and innovator. He started two companies in Singapore in the areas of Financial transactions & Animation technology. After one of the companies was acquired he moved to India to head a leadership school based in Pune, where he led the school's social effort by creating a independent Centre for Social Development. He started his career as a 3D and Film Special effects artist, holds a couple of patents from his ventures and has worked on a wide range of technologies, projects, training and strategic business models.

Shivangini Tandon, India
Shivangini (Shiv) joined Ashoka as an intern in Arlington in September 2006 before joining the Fellowship team in India in 2007. Shiv is extremely  passionate about issues of identity and discrimination. She started her own venture with an ‘exclusive club’ for all in her community at age eight to dispel the segregation in the playground. She has lived a nomadic life having lived in rural and urban India, UK and the United States. She received a BA with honors from Boston University in Economics and Anthropology.

Vipin Thekkekalathil, India
Vipin is building the Youth Venture program in India. During his college days Vipino co-founded an organization which served as a platform for peaceful inter-religious dialogue between students from different faiths during the communal riots in 2002.  As part of his Masters of Social Work program, Vipin focused his thesis on child sexual abuse and through the process began to see the larger society's indifference and denial of the issue and the total lack of support systems for abused children. He helped set up Tulir - Center for the Prevention & Healing of Child Sexual Abuse in Chennai, an organization which works on the prevention of child sexual abuse.