Board of Directors
Sanjeev Asthana
MD, I- FARM (Chairman)
Sanjeev Asthana currently the Chairman of ACCESS Development Services, is a recognized leader in Food & Agriculture sector with over 25 years of experience in India and internationally. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of I-Farm Venture Advisors; Chairman of Agriculture Skill Council of India (ASCI) and National Skills Foundation of India (NSFI), and serves on the Board of Directors of NCDEX Spot Exchange Ltd. Sanjeev serves on the national committees of all leading industry and trade chambers CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and PHDCCI. His international affiliations are with IIED UK, Mainumby Bolivia and Columbia University, USA. He regularly speaks at leading conferences in India and overseas viz. Harvard University Boston, World Bank Beijing and Singapore, ADB Manila, European Parliament Brussels, G-20 Consultation Istanbul, IIM Ahmedabad, Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy Mussorie etc.
Sanjeev Asthana
MD, I- FARM (Chairman)
Mr. Satish Pradhan
Former Chief Group Human Resources, Tata Sons
Mr. Satish Pradhan is currently an Independent Consultant advising Boards and Companies on Strategy, Leadership and HR, He works with CEOs and Senior leadership as a coach and mentor. He retired as Advisor, Tata Sons Limited in 2015. He was the Chief of Group Human Resources at Tata Sons from April 2001 to May 2013. Prior to joining the Tata Group in 2001, he was with ICI Plc in London at their Head Office leading the Organisation Design & Development function.
Mr Pradhan has a Masters in History from Delhi University and has worked in several Public & Private Sector companies over the last 40 years. The companies that he has been associated with are – Steel Authority of India, CMC, ICI India, Brooke Bond Lipton India Ltd (now Unilever India) and ICI Plc in various capacities in the HR area.
He started his career in Human Resources on the shop floor of an integrated steel plant in Raurkela (SAIL) from where he went on to looking after the Western Region HR of the Marketing Organisation at SAIL. He then moved to CMC as the Head of HR and partnered the development of CMC from a small public sector organisation to a full range IT firm in 4 years. His first stint with ICI was based in India as the Head of training initially for ICI India and later support for Global businesses in Asia Pacific.
Mr Pradhan’s experience with Unilever was at the time when two tea companies – Brooke Bond and Lipton got merged, and he was responsible for Human Integration as the Head of Management Development. After this association with Unilever, Mr Pradhan returned to ICI as Vice President of Human Resources and was deputed to the global headquarters at Millbank, London in the UK in the Global role of Organisation Design and Development Head.
Mr Pradhan has served on the boards of several Tata Group companies. He was a Non-Executive Director at TAL Manufacturing Solutions, Tata Services Ltd, He served as an Independent Director on the Board of the National Payments Corporation of India till 2020 and on the Advisory Board of IIT Roorkee. He was the Convener of the National Conference for Social Innovation. Of Pune International Centre.
To name a few Tata Companies, he has served as a Non-Executive Director at Tata Services Limited at the Headquarters of the Tata Group , the Board of Tata AutoComp Systems Limited (TACO) at Tata Green Yuasa (TGY) and Computational Research Laboratories.
He has frequently been a speaker, faculty at national and international conferences and Business Schools in India and overseas. Partnering personally, and organizationally with premier B Schools globally on leadership development. He pioneered the consortium learning model for intercorporate leadership development for the Tatas along. With GE, ABN AMRO, BHP Bilton, Boeing and other leading companies.
He is a Chartered Fellow of CIPD,UK, and was awarded a DLitt ( honoris causa) in Human Resources Development and Environmental Conservation in 2016.
Mr Pradhan is an avid naturalist and has been on the Governing Council of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) for more than a decade. He is also on the Governing Council of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) from 2002, and has been an Adjunct Faculty. He is a co-founder of The Leadership Centre, a director of the National Stock Exchange Academy, Shrusti Conservation Foundation and Access Development Services.
Satish Pradhan
Former Chief Group Human Resources, Tata Sons
Ruby Thapar
Adjunct Consultant, CSR & Sustainability, The Conference Board
Ruby is a C Suite executive with over 25 + years of experience leading Corporate Affairs and Sustainability agendas in complex environments and sensitive sectors including chemicals and extractive industries. Ruby began her career with teaching child and human development to undergraduate students, before joining “Save the Children, India” a non-profit organization, followed by 3 stints in the corporate world in different capacities – as General Manager, Corporate Communications, at the Aditya Birla Group; VP and Group Head, CSR at Vedanta Resources Plc and with Dow Chemical International Pvt. Ltd, as Director Public & Government Affairs & Crisis & Issues Communication Lead for India, Middle East, Africa & Turkey. She is currently Adjunct Consultant, CSR & Sustainability, The Conference Board. She is also a certified executive coach.
Ruby Thapar
Adjunct Consultant, CSR & Sustainability, The Conference Board
Mr. Vijay Chugh
Former Head of Dept of Payment System / DPSS, RBI
Mr. VIJAY CHUGH, prior to his retirement in December 2014, was Head of the Department of Payment & Settlement Systems with the Reserve Bank of India, spearheading India’s vision and mission towards a modern payment system. During over three decades of service with the Reserve Bank of India, he has contributed to certain key areas corresponding to the following statutory mandates of India’s Central Bank, viz. Payment and Settlement Systems and Core Banking Solution (financial infrastructure), Supervision and Regulation of commercial banks (financial stability and financial integrity), and Rural credit and development (financial inclusion). At the International level, he was a Member of the Committee for Payments & Market Infrastructure (CPMI – the erstwhile CPSS), Bank for International Settlements, Switzerland, the SAARC Payments Council and Director, Payment & Settlement Systems of Asia-Pacific Central Banks (SEACEN, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). At the national level, he lead policy initiatives as Member Secretary of various committees including the Bharat Bills Payment System (BBPS), Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS), Mobile Banking and was Chairman of various committees set up to examine Virtual Currencies.
Post his retirement from Reserve Bank of India, Mr. Chugh has been engaged as Advisor/Consultant to The World Bank (Payments Development Group) and UNCDF for their projects in India, Nepal, Ethiopia, Vietnam, South Africa, Myanmar. He has been and is presently a Consultant to various local and international payment system providers and operators. Mr Chugh is also on the Board of several NBFCs and payment firms.
Mr. Vijay Chugh
Former Head of Dept of Payment System / DPSS, RBI
Vipin Sharma
CEO, ACCESS Development Services
Vipin Sharma is the founding CEO of ACCESS, set up in 2006.Starting his career with the Reserve Bank of India, Vipin has thirty six years of experience in banking, agriculture and rural development, micro enterprise development and microfinance in varied institutions including NABARD, Rural Non- Farm Development Agency (RUDA), Govt of Rajasthan and CARE India. As Executive Director of RUDA, Vipin helped the Govt of Rajasthan to develop strategies for promoting non-farm sector in the state through a sub-sector approach. At CARE,
Vipin was the Programme Director of the Microfinance Unit and a part of the Regional Leadership Team. In the last ten years, Vipin has also helped to setup two specialized affiliates of ACCESS viz. ACCESS-ASSIST to support and advance financial inclusion in India and Ode to Earth to help primary producers sell their products in mainstream markets. Vipin is a member of the Smart Campaign Steering Committee, working on issues relating to client protection.
Vipin Sharma
CEO, Access Development Services
Arvind Kumar
Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration & Urban Development, Government of Telangana
Arvind Kumar is a bureaucrat civil servant in Government of India. He has been in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) since 1991 and has worked in various capacities at the State level in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and now Telangana State for over two decades. He has worked in Government of India from 2009-14 in the Ministry of Finance where as Joint Secretary in Department of Financial Services (DFS), he looked after Insurance and Banking sector, more specifically, insurance & pension reforms, Institutional Finance including housing, MSME, Micro Finance, Agriculture & rural Credit. Mr. Kumar has been a Government nominated Director on the Boards of NABARD, ICICI Bank Ltd, the New India Assurance Company Limited (NIACL), SIDBI, National Housing Bank (NHB) and IRDA among others during this period.
Mr Kumar is presently the Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration & Urban Development, Government of Telangana. Previously he has held the positions of Principal Secretary, Investment Promotion and Principal Resident Commissioner of Telangana state in New Delhi. Mr. Kumar has also handled the crucial post of Principal Secretary, Industries & Commerce, Mining, Textiles and Energy in State Government of Telangana from Jan 2015 until Jan 2017. Telangana’s New Industrial Policy was launched by him in June, 2015 and the State got number one rank among all 29 states in “Ease of Doing Business” (EODB) ranking of states for the year 2016.
Mr. Kumar is a graduate in Economics from St. Stephens Delhi and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, India. In addition, Mr. Kumar is a Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from Woodrow Wilson School (WWS), Princeton University, USA as Robert McNarama Scholar and has also done a course on Leadership & Globalization from LSE London, UK as a Chevening Scholar.
Arvind kumar
IAS, Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration & Urban Development, Government of Telangana
Senior Management Team
Vipin Sharma
CEO, ACCESS Development Services
Vipin Sharma is the founding CEO of ACCESS, set up in 2006.Starting his career with the Reserve Bank of India, Vipin has thirty six years of experience in banking, agriculture and rural development, micro enterprise development and microfinance in varied institutions including NABARD, Rural Non- Farm Development Agency (RUDA), Govt of Rajasthan and CARE India. As Executive Director of RUDA, Vipin helped the Govt of Rajasthan to develop strategies for promoting non-farm sector in the state through a sub-sector approach. At CARE,
Vipin was the Programme Director of the Microfinance Unit and a part of the Regional Leadership Team. In the last ten years, Vipin has also helped to setup two specialized affiliates of ACCESS viz. ACCESS-ASSIST to support and advance financial inclusion in India and Ode to Earth to help primary producers sell their products in mainstream markets. Vipin is a member of the Smart Campaign Steering Committee, working on issues relating to client protection.
Vipin Sharma
Chief Executive Officer
Radhika Agashe
Executive Director
Radhika Agashe
Executive Director
Puja Gour
Vice President
Puja is a rural management professional with over 15 years of expertise spanning project management, social research and knowledge management & policy advocacy. Within ACCESS, Puja leads on the organisation’s flagship initiative besides handling other organizational responsibilities. Prior to ACCESS, she has worked with livelihoods consulting firms like STADD providing expert technical advice on execution and management of complex livelihoods programs. She has also worked on integrated natural resource management programs with the Indo-German Bilateral Project on Watershed Management besides being involved in the preparation of the pioneering “Madhya Pradesh Human Development Report.” Puja holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Forestry Management from the India Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and B.Sc. in Botany from Miranda House, Delhi University.
Puja Gour
Vice President
Subir Ghosh
Associate Vice President- Program Support
Subir Ghosh leads ACCESS’s financial strategy and operations including grant and contract management. Prior to joining ACCESS, Subir has worked with Oxfam, Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust (HLFPPT), Gramin Vikas Trust (GVT) and ABC India Ltd. He has over 18 years of experience of which 16 years have been in the development Sector. Subir specialises in financial planning, fund management, budgeting, donor financial contract management, audits, and taxation, implementation of systems & processes and general administration. He has extensive experience in administering large budgets funded by donors like USAID, European Union, UNICEF, UNDP, Dell Foundation, DFID and CIDA. Subir has completed his CWA (Final Group I) and MBA in Finance.
Subir Ghosh
Vice President- Program Support
Sukhbir Ahluwalia
Vice President and Head – HR
Sukhbir is an experienced human resource professional with sound expertise in developing and implementing human resource initiatives and strategies. During her career she has been associated with organizations in India and abroad across a wide spectrum of industries. She holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management with specialization in Human Resource and an advance diploma in Training and Development. She is leading the HR function for ACCESS with the focus to establish the best talent practices in ACCESS.
Sukhbir Ahluwalia
Vice President and Head – HR
Suvendu Rout
Associate Vice President
With an MA in Economics and Post-Graduate Diploma in Management of NGOs (PGDMN), Suvendu has more than 14 years of varied experience. He has had the advantage of working on the areas of policy, research and management from the perspective of a private consultancy, the Government and NGOs. Before coming on board at ACCESS, Suvendu was with the CSR wing of Ambuja Cement. He has also worked at MART and the Gujarat State Watershed Management Agency.
Suvendu Rout
Vice President
Meenakshi Rathore
Gender and Diversity Specialist
Meenakshi leads the Gender and Diversity vertical in ACCESS to ensure inclusiveness at both institutional and operations/programme levels. Prior to joining ACCESS, she has been with the UN-Women to provide technical support to Department of Women and Child Development, Delhi Government on gender equality and mainstreaming with special focus on strengthening Women’s Economic Empowerment. She is a development professional with over 14 years of progressively responsible work experience, of which more than 8 years have been with the Government, both at the Centre and State, on wide range of issues related to gender, gender mainstreaming, women’s socio-economic empowerment, child protection, education & governance; developing M&E systems, strengthening mechanisms of convergence and coordination for effective service delivery of social policies/ large scale programmes to reach out to the vulnerable and marginalized women/girls. She holds a masters in Business Administration from Women’s Institute for Development Oriented Management (WISDOM), Banasthali Vidyapeeth, with specialization in Human Resource Development.
Meenakshi Rathore
Gender and Diversity Specialist
Shubhendu Dash
Vice President – Agri Vertical
Shubhendu comes with 22 years of overall experience out of which, he has spent almost 16 years in agri value chain development, Organic agriculture development, FPO ecosystem development and promoting value addition in agri/ horti and allied commodities. He is B.Sc in life sciences and MBA in Marketing and has a PG Diploma in Data Science from IIIT, Bangalore. He also holds a certification from International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) Philippines on “Pro-poor value chain and actor empowerment”.
He has worked with almost 150 FPOs and has experience of implementing large scale agriculture value chain development projects in states like Assam, Sikkim, West Bengal, Odisha, AP, Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh & Maharashtra. Shubhendu has led the teams for prestigious FPO/agri value chain development projects under SFAC; NABARD; NAFED RKVY; CSS 10000 FPO Program; World Bank supported Rajasthan Agribusiness Competitiveness Project; BMGF and Department of Agriculture (Odisha) supported MANDI project; BMGF, Department of Agriculture & Mission Shakti Odisha supported AMAZE Project. He has to his credit multiple successful FPO models engaged in agri inputs, output, custom hire, value addition, branding/packaging & market linkages.
Convergence with Government departments and schemes is one of his major strengths and all the programs handled by him have great levels of convergence with local, state and central government.
Another area of his core strength is facilitating access to markets for small-holder farmers. He has linked FPOs with numerous prestigious buyers like ITC, ADM, Adani, Cargill, Ruchi Soy, Godrej Agrovet, ABIS, UDAAN, Reliance Fresh, Big Bazar, Spencer’s, AoV Agro, Licious etc. and various online/technology platforms like NCDEX, eNAM, NCML, Kisan Yard, DeHaat etc. and facilitate procurement of agri commodities to the tune of Rs 50 crores.
Shubhendu also has good international exposure. He has promoted organic agriculture techniques in Malaysia with support from Malaysia Biotechnology Corporation and in Saudi Arabia in coordination with GTZ and Saudi Agriculture Department.
Shubhendu Dash
Vice President – Agri Vertical