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
CEO
Patanjali Foods
Ruchi Raman
Venture Partner, Elevar Equity
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
Malini Thadani
Visiting Faculty,
Indian School of Development Management
Sandhya Venkateswaran
Senior Fellow,
Centre for Social Policy and Economic Research
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
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 has the overall responsibility of oversight of programme implementation and new programme development at ACCESS, apart from leading the global Inclusive Finance Platform for knowledge and policy influencing on financial inclusion. She specializes in the thematic areas of financial and business education, microfinance operations, Self Help Group model, and social performance management through over two decades of experience in program implementation, development of content for training and communication, convening forums and policy dialogues and conducting social research. Earlier as Executive Director of ACCESS ASSIST, she led the organization’s work in three broad areas — conceiving and leading field-based projects in financial and business capability building, providing technical assistance and consulting and convening the flagship Inclusive Finance India platform. She has coordinated various policy discussions and state of practice studies for promoting an enabling institutional and regulatory framework for financial inclusion in India. She has actively represented her organization on the India Responsible Finance Forum led by the IFC.
Radhika has in the past been associated with many reputed organizations, such as EDA Rural Systems, Indian Grameen Services (BASIX), Intellecap, Sambodhi Research & Communications, and Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN). She holds a post-graduate degree from the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM). She enjoys traveling to natural habitats with a penchant for bird watching and exploring forest trails.
: radhika@accessdev.org
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