About Us

Manoj Kumar Nambiar

Managing Director, Arohan Financial Services (P)Ltd.

Mr. Manoj Kumar Nambiar has over 30 years of experience and is currently with the Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group as the Managing Director of Arohan Financial Services Limited – the 7th largest NBFC MFI in India. He started his career with Modi Xerox in 1988 and then moved into consumer finance with GE Countrywide in 1995, retail banking with ANZ Grindlays in 1997 and retail assets and business development with ABN Amro Bank NV India in 2000. Mr. Nambiar moved to the National Bank of Oman as Head Retail Banking in 2002 looking after Oman, UAE and Egypt. Post that he worked as the COO of the Alhamrani - Nissan Finance company, KSA in 2004 and returned to Oman as the Deputy CEO of Ahli Bank SAOG in 2008. He returned to India in June 2010 as MD & CEO of IntelleCash Microfinance Network Company (P) Limited (an Intellecap Group company) in the business of incubating and capacity building of MFIs. Mr. Nambiar is a mechanical engineer by graduation from VJTI in 1986, an MBA in Marketing by post-graduation from JBIMS in 1988, both from Mumbai University and has tertiary qualifications in insurance from III. He has also completed a “Strategic Leadership in Microfinance” course from the Harvard Business School, Boston, the US in April 2013.

Vineet Chattree

Director, Svatantra Microfin Pvt. Ltd.

Mr. Vineet Chattree has over 20 years of experience in Operations and Consulting with large corporates spanning across India, Middle East, US and Europe. In the last 4 years, his strategic thinking and experience has enabled Svatantra Microfin Pvt. Ltd. map out a differentiated, diversified, profitable, and sustainable growth path. Mr. Chattree firmly believes that organization can sustainably grow if it creates a meaningful difference in the lives of its customers. He is a chemical engineering graduate from ‘Institute of Chemical Technology – Mumbai’ and has completed his Masters of Management from IIT – B and Executive management program at Wharton. An avid reader, trekker and a marathon runner, he is rarely without his Kindle that is loaded with books from mythology to management.

Udaya Kumar

Managing Director & CEO , CreditAccess Grameen Ltd.

Mr. Udaya Kumar joined CreditAccess Grameen Ltd. as Chief Executive Officer in September 2010. He is a veteran in the financial services field with over 25 years of experience in the banking sector.

He has previously worked with Corporation Bank for 10 years, ICICI Bank for over 12 years and Barclays Bank Plc. for three years. Mr. Kumar has been exposed to Operations, Credit Management,Product development, Technology and Business Development in banking.Prior to joining CreditAccess Grameen Ltd. he was spearheading the commercial, payment and branch operations at Barclays Bank Plc, India. In the course of his career, Mr. Kumar has successfully imbibed technical, qualitative and managerial skills and been part of a team implementing process initiatives like Centralizing Operations, Process re-engineering, Six Sigma Quality Initiatives, Five-S principles for workplace management and implementation of ISO Standard in banking operations.

Mr. Udaya Kumar holds a Master’s degree in commerce, CAIIB from the Indian Institute of Bankers and is also a graduate in bank operations and technology from BAI, USA.

Mohammad Nooruddin Amin

Managing Director, Adhikar Microfinance Pvt Ltd.

Mr Mohammad Nooruddin Amin is the Managing Director of Adhikar Microfinance Pvt Ltd. Adhikar works in the field of financial inclusion in the eastern part of India with Odisha being the focus state. Mr. Amin is one of the early votaries of the micro finance movement. He innovated the concept of money remittance for the migrant workers and initiated the cooperative movement in the state of Odisha. He has studied Law from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Human Rights in Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Mr. Amin is the recipient of the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship from Ashoka Trust, USA in 1996.

K M Vishwanathan

Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer - M Power Micro Finance Pvt Ltd.

Mr. K M Vishwanathan is the MD & CEO of M Power Micro Finance Pvt Ltd. A BFSI professional with an exposure of 32 years across NBFC, Banking and MFI lending industries. His experience in banking constitutes of 9 years in Karnataka Bank and 9 years with HDFC bank. Mr. Vishwanathan also has an experience of NBFC lending from his time in Cholamandalam Finance. In 2009 he promoted M Power Micro Finance and continues to run this venture as MD & CEO. Mr. Vishwanathan holds a Master’s degree in Financial Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai University

Harish Raghu

Co-Founder, MD & CEO of SaGgraha Management Services

Mr. Harish Venkata Raghu is the Co-Founder, MD & CEO of SaGgraha Management Services - a tech driven corporate business correspondent offering multiple financial products dedicated to rural in association with various SFBs and NBFCs. He has a varied experience of over 23 years across Agri, Rural, Banking and Financial sector. He has previously worked as COO of Future Financial Services Ltd.( known as Fincare now), CPO at Spandana Spoorthy. He has also been associated with Fullerton Rural, ICICI bank, Madras Fertilizers in the past. His core expertise includes Sales, Operations, HR, Branch banking, Communications & PR, and Marketing. He has vast experience in HRMS where he served as C.P.O at Spandana managing 12,000 employees and has expertise in low cost hiring at Bottom of the Pyramid. He has pursued B.Sc. in Agriculture, PGDBM and EGMP from IIM – Bengaluru. He is well connected to various rural management institutes where he is invited for guest lectures and also conducts Industry Workshops on HR and Operations. Harish is an avid traveller.

Jagadish Ramadugu

MD & CEO, Vaya Finserv Private Limited

Mr. Jagadish Ramadugu is an Engineer with an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) and has more than 22 years of work experience in leadership roles in diverse sectors including Financial services, Retail & Consumer goods in leading companies like Asian Paints, Coca Cola & RPG. He is the Co-founder & CEO of VAYA Finserv, a Rs 1250 Cr AUM NBFC MFI headquartered in Hyderabad with more than 250 operational branches. Vaya aims to provide access to affordable credit to more than a million rural and semi urban low-income clients by 2020. Technology led robust scalable model and a good management team with unmatched experience in financial inclusion has defined VAYA and its performance over its last five years since inception. VAYA aspires to be a customer centric and an innovative microfinance institution in the country. VAYA has been certified as a B- Corp by the B corporation USA in recognition of its social performance principles and multi-stakeholder approach. Vaya is also a proud employer of more than 1800 employees and a certified “Great place to Work” with an employee centric approach including e-learning and best in class human resources practices.
He is passionately involved, since its inception in 2010, with a Charitable Trust which manages "Sparsh Hospice Center" caring for terminally ill persons in a peaceful and serene environment and is a well-recognised non- profit organisation for both its governance and its impact.

Gyan Mohan

Director & CEO, Adi Chitragupta Finance Limited

Mr Gyan Mohan is a career banker with exposure in all facets of Banking and Finance including investment and international banking. He started his career as a Probationary Officer, SBI in 1979 and had several challenging assignments both in India and abroad. He has worked with SBI Capital Market as SVP & GH (M & A) and is credited with advising on many privatization, mergers and advisory assignments. He has held top management position in SBI, IDBI Capital, Power Exchange India Limited, Fortune Financial Services Limited and SIS India Limited.
Mr Mohan has keen interest in social banking and has been associated with poverty alleviation programme during his various assignments at SBI. In early part of his career, he was Officer In charge IRDP (Integrated Rural Development Programme) for SBI for the state of Bihar and was deeply involved in policy making for poverty alleviation and implementation thereof. During the period, he was also trained in poverty alleviation measures at the College of Agriculture Banking, Pune (an institution of RBI).
He has sound understanding of Banking and Economic issues. He has been invited for giving Guest Lectures at Management Schools, Chamber of Commerce etc. He was a member of a working committee constituted by Reserve Bank of India for formulating policies on ˜E-commerce” and Mergers and Acquisitions in the Banking Sector. He has founded and built ACFL business in 2017 entrepreneurially from the scratch to an economically viable MFI.

Navin Kumar Maini

Retired Deputy Managing Director, SIDBI

Mr. Navin Kumar Maini retired as the Deputy Managing Director of SIDBI. He has more than three and a half decades of experience in the commercial and development banking in various facets of financing MSMEs & large corporates, Micro Credit and core business functions. He was also the Chief Executive Officer of the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE),Mumbai. An alumnus of St. Stephens College, Delhi, Mr. Maini holds a Degree in Law from Delhi University. He is also a Postgraduate in Management from MDI and IIFT, besides being a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Banking & Finance.

Dr. Alok Misra

Professor- Public Policy & Governance Area, MDI

Dr. Alok Misra has 25 years of professional experience in international development, rural finance, microfinance, inclusive finance and research at both policy and implementation level. He started his career with India’s apex rural development bank (NABARD) in 1992. He has been a part of the multi institutional task force (2003-2004) responsible for setting up India’s first online demutualized commodities exchange (NCDEX). He is a member of Inclusive Finance India Group of Advisors and member of Digital finance working group constituted by ITU, Geneva. Dr. Misra has written numerous articles and reports and has authored “Responsible Finance India Report”. He has been awarded ADB-Government of Japan scholarship for MDM programme and NZAID scholarship for his PhD. Dr. Misra holds a PhD in Development Studies from Victoria university of Wellington, Master in Development Management (Gold Medallist) from Asian Institute of Management, Manila. He has been trained at Harvard Business School in “Strategic leadership for Microfinance” and was a Fellow, Fletcher Leadership Program for Financial Inclusion at Tufts University.

Desh Raj Dogra

Ex- MD & CEO - CARE Ratings

Mr. Desh Raj Dogra has 38 years of rich experience within the financial sector in the areas of banking and credit rating. He has maintained a high growth trajectory after taking over as acting Managing Director and made CARE the second largest rating agency. Several initiatives have been successfully taken such as acquisition of Kalypto Risk Technologies (a risk management solutions company), opening of first global office in the Republic of Maldives, setting up the first credit rating agency in Mauritius, forging ties with other global rating agencies in creation of a global rating agency, ARC Ratings (with partners from Brazil,Malaysia, Portugal and South Africa).Mr. Dogra also worked closely with the Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India, where CARE prepared a dossier on the Indian Economy as well as white papers on both the equity and debt markets for the Ministry. Mr. Dogra holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Agriculture from Himachal Pradesh University and MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi. He is a certified associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers.

Dr. Aruna (Limaye) Sharma

Indian Administrative Service Officer (Retd.)

Dr. Aruna Sharma retired in 2018 as the Secretary, Steel in the Government of India. Prior to that, she was the Secretary, Information Technology in the Government of India. Dr. Sharma is from the Madhya Pradesh cadre of the IAS (1982 batch). She has served as the Development Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj in Madhya Pradesh; as the Director General of Doordarshan; as Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry of the Government of India (attached to the National Human Rights Commission); as Managing Director of the MP Dairy Federation, apart from other posts in MP.

Dr. Sharma has authored various publications namely : Reaching the Last Beneficiary: Resource Convergence Mantra Model –2008 (UNDP), Impact of Recourse Convergence in Policy Making, Program Design and Execution – 2014.(UNDP)etc. She has been recognised internationally as the Co-Chair in Global Steel Forum 2017-2018, listed as “Data Champion” for developing IT based data module for bringing efficiency in Government functioning by John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (HARVARD Kennedy School) for developing high-quality data systems and “Helped to establish unique identifying data system to facilitate government to have household data for family to extract entitlement and ensure citizen payments in Madhya Pradesh thorough SAMAGRA.

Dr. Sharma has pursued Master’s in Development Studies from the University of Bath, United Kingdom and holds a PhD in Development Economics (Delhi University).

Harsh Shrivastava

Harsh Shrivastava has 23 years’ experience in advising businesses and governments on policy.  Before joining as the CEO of MFIN, he was the head of corporate affairs and communication at Feedback Infra, which is India’s leading provider of infrastructure services.  Earlier, he was the head of corporate affairs for Srei Infrastructure Finance.  Harsh was previously in India’s Planning Commission, where he was its Consultant (Planning), managing the process of making India's 12th Plan.  He has served in the Prime Minister’s Office on the personal staff of Prime Minister Vajpayee as his deputy speechwriter.  He has held senior posts in Reliance Capital, Feedback Ventures, and the Confederation of Indian Industry, where he handled agribusiness and food processing.  Harsh has been a journalist and wrote India’s first book on Corporate Social Responsibility, released in 1999.

Harsh has taught public policy to the founding batch of the Vedica Scholars program and taught a course on strategic public communications at IIM, Ahmedabad.  He has also lectured about public policy at the Indian School of Business, both at Hyderabad and Mohali as well as the Australian National University, Canberra.  Harsh has written for the op-ed pages of Mint, Economic Times, and the Indian Express.  He was an Emerging Leaders Fellow at the Australia India Institute, Melbourne and selected by the US Department of State for its International Visitor Leadership Program. He was also on the board of the Meghalaya Institute of Governance.

Harsh finished his MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad in 1995.

Achla Savyasaachi

Achla has been working with MFIN since April 2014 and is responsible for looking after the state and regional chapters. Prior to MFIN she has worked with Sa-Dhan, the Association of Community Development Finance Institutions for thirteen years where she contributed extensively for the growth of financial inclusion in urban and rural India across models, facilitated dialogue between different stakeholders-people, policy makers, service providers for better understanding of diverse models. She is a qualified Company Secretary and has also done her law from CCS University.

Sugandh Saxena

Sugandh heads the SRO vertical at MFIN. She joined MFIN during its start-up phase and played the lead role in MFIN’s policy & advocacy work, development of credit bureau ecosystem, MFIN’s data publications and research as well as setting standards and benchmarks. Before joining MFIN in 2011, she had worked with Bharat Electronic, SEWA, ITC and ACTED across a wide spectrum of areas related to technology, business and development themes. She is an Engineering graduate from MNNIT, Allahabad and post graduate in Social policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Swetan Sagar

Swetan Sagar has an MBA degree from Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal. He was earlier working with M-CRIL at the position of Chief Operating Officer and has over 18 years of experience in designing and leading multi-country programme evaluations in the financial inclusion space. His key areas of expertise include data analytics, market research, impact assessments, institutional assessments, capacity building of financial institutions and livelihood promotion institutions catering to the low-income segment.
Swetan has led many projects in the financial inclusion and enterprise development sectors across India and 15+ countries in the Asia and Africa region.

Bhavna Dayal

Bhavna is heading the Communications at MFIN. She has sixteen years’ experience in corporate communication. She was previously GM, Corporate Communications at Punj Lloyd, a USD 1.8 billion a global engineering and construction conglomerate where she led internal and external communication, stakeholder management, media relations, crisis management, events and reputation management. During her twelve years at Punj Lloyd, she was instrumental in scaling up the brand through acquisitions and new brand identity rollouts. She also worked in corporate communications for Anand Automotive Systems for four years. Bhavna is a postgraduate in Science from Maharaja Sayajirao University and a postgraduate in Business Administration from Symbiosis. She is an Alumni of the Swedish Institute Management Programme where she was certified for CSR and Sustainability.

Amit Mathur

Amit is a financial inclusion professional with more than seven years of work experience. He has been working with MFIN since March,2015. Previously he has worked with BASIX & ICICI Lombard GIC Ltd. as a Product Manager for group health insurance (Micro Insurance product). His most recent association was with the World Bank Group in the sphere of Digital Financial services. Amit has completed his Post- Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from IRMA, Anand.

Raj Kumar Chauhan

Raj has a professional experience of 12 years within development sector. Prior to MFIN he has
worked with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Fund Projects and State AIDS Control Society.
He has pursued his postgraduate in Social Science specializing in Data Management from Andhra
University.

Piyush Singh

Piyush has 10+ Years of work experience with specialisation in Banking and Digital Financial services. He has worked extensively on digital financial services in India and Africa in different capacity as State lead, Strategic Alliance, Consultant and Senior Product Manager. Piyush has hands on experience and in depth understanding of payment system, like AePS, BBPS, E-KYC, India stack layers, mobile wallets, remittance business, card payments, Block chain, P2P and other emerging payment systems etc.
Before joining MFIN, he has worked with Barclays bank, Srei Sahaj, Oxigen, MicroSave, Tata Teleservices (mRUPEE), and Spice Digital. He is a member of AIMA and Volunteer at iSPIRT.
Piyush has done his MBA from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar and Executive education from Columbia Business School with specialisation in Marketing.

Bhumika Panda

Bhumika has joined MFIN as an AVP – Communications and Marketing. Bhumika has an experience of about 8 years working on assignments related to brand strategy and communications working across Media & Advertising agencies. She has an expertise of handling both ATL and BTL which includes Media Planning, Events, Experiential activities, Integrated Media Properties and social media marketing. She has worked with different agencies including Edelman India, Dentsu Aegis India Network, Group M Media India. Bhumika has completed her Post Graduation in Mass Communication from Amity University and graduated from Symbiosis Society’s College of Arts and Commerce specialising in English Literature.

Sheetal Prasad

Sheetal joined MFIN in 2016 and has been part of different SRO functions including CGRM, Third-party Evaluations, enforcement and SRO governance. She currently leads the SRO work in terms of framing standards, research, enforcement and governance. Before joining MFIN, she was managing commercialisation of ICAR Technologies and Capacity building of various stakeholders with Agrinnovate India Limited. She has
three years of rich experience with ICICI Bank Ltd. both in SME (asset side working capital funding of credit and non- credit facilities) and Retail Branch banking. Before Joining ICICI Bank, she was associated with BASIX within Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Limited (BSFL), a NBFC dealing with microfinance and livelihood sustainability in Credit and Risk management team, where she also managed microfinance operations at the field level. Sheetal has completed her MBA in Rural Management from IRMA and is a B.Sc (Ag) Graduate from OUAT, BBSR.

Jay Tripathi

Jay joined MFIN’s SRO function in 2017 and leads SRO’s monitoring function as well as reporting to the RBI. He has more than six years of experience from diverse background in consultancy, CSR, NGO’s and Media. He has worked with, Mancer consulting services, Katha, Swayam Siddha and Daily News and as an Analysis in the past. Jay holds a master’s degree in International development from the University of Manchester. He has also studied journalism from Asian College of Journalism and Business Administration from Symbiosis Centre of
Management Studies.

Sankalp Tripathi

Sankalp has been working with MFIN since Aug, 2016 as a Manager, Grievance Redressal, within the SRO team. Prior to MFIN, he has worked with GIZ on rural insurance and agriculture value chain development projects. He has worked briefly with Yes Bank and Ananya Finance on internship assignments related to financial literacy, process mapping and loan product development. Sankalp has completed his Post-Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from IRMA, Anand and Masters from TISS, Mumbai.

Jatinder Handoo

Jatinder is a financial inclusion professional with over eight years of experience in retail banking, microfinance, public policy research and agency banking space within and outside of India. Previously he has worked with SBI, HDFC Bank Ltd, MIX Inc and FINO PayTech Ltd. He has completed his Masters in Public policy from India and has attended a program in Public Policy Improvement offered by EPoD at Harvard University and Summer School Programme for Leadership in Development at Sanford School of Public Policy (Duke University Durham,N.C) and IIM Udaipur.

Habib Shaikh

Habib is a finance expert with twelve years of experience. Prior to MFIN, he was associated with Sa-Dhan (The Association of Community Development Finance Institutions) as a “Senior Executive-State coordinator”, responsible for the member services of North-East and Eastern region (viz. Assam, Manipur, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh).An MBA graduate from Bangalore University, he has also worked for six years in the retail finance industry .He has also been recognised as a “Smart Assessor” by the “Smart Campaign”.

PM Kamalesh

Kamalesh has over twelve years of rich experience. Prior to MFIN, Kamalesh has worked with Sa-Dhan (The Association of Community Development Finance Institutions) as Regional Manager responsible for the member services of South region (Viz Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka).
He has completed an online course of Social Enterprise and Microfinance Experts from University of Libre de Bruxelles.
Kamalesh has pursued his MBA Finance from National Institute of Business Management, BA in Economics from Annamalai University and software engineering from Computer Maintenance Corporation.

Devendra Shahapurkar

Devendra is a seasoned management professional with 12 years of diverse experience. Prior to joining MFIN, he was associated with Fino Payments Bank and played instrumental role in product innovations and distribution of insurance products. He successfully led Microinsurance Innovation Project of International Labor Organization at Fino with multiple stakeholders; and also awarded with Best Innovative Business Initiative.He has also worked with Richcore Lifesciences, Span Outsourcing and Everonn Systems. He is an Engineering graduate with PGDBM in Marketing and Finance. He is a member of AIMA and Licentiate in Life and General Insurance from Insurance Institute of India.

Sanjay Kumar

Sanjay has over twenty one years of experience within microfinance and rural development industry. Prior to MFIN, he was associated with institutions like Sarvodaya Nano Finance Limited, Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Ltd. and Indian Grameen Services – BASIX where he worked across 18 districts of Bihar & Jharkhand. He also worked as ‘National Resource Person – IB/CB’ for Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihood Mission on behalf of NIRDPR, MoRD, Government of India. At BASIX he worked as an AVP & State Head in the states of Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh. He started his career with ASSEFA where he initiated the livelihood promotional activities through mobilization of Gram Sabha/ ULBs/ PRIs and Women Self Help Group.
He has worked with NGOs partners, MFIs, NBFCs, Community Based Microfinance Institutions and coordinated programme implementation.
He has the expertise of planning, implementation , management, partnerships development , policy advocating, monitoring and evaluation of large scale programmes.

Dhiraj Soni

An astute & result oriented professional with 19 years of rich experience in strategic planning, business development, collection as well as team management within banking and financial sector. Prior to MFIN, he was associated with SRG Housing Finance as a “Head Collections”, responsible for Collections vertical of Rajashan,MP,Maharastra and Gujarat region . He has pursued his graduation from Barkatullah University.

Sharad Garg

Sharad has been working with MFIN since July 2016 and is responsible for looking after Finance, HR and Admin in MFIN. Prior to join MFIN, he has worked with Oxfam India, HIV / AIDS Alliance, Sasakawa India Leprosy Foundation and Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe). He has eighteen years of experience in financial management, grants management, statutory compliances, HR and admin. He holds MBA degree in Finance and has also done his law graduation.

Shantnu Kumar

Shantnu has an experience of five years in financial management, statutory compliances, and accounting practices. He also has an experience of managing administrative functions in the past both within corporate & social sector. Over the past five years, Shantanu has worked with LIFE (Livelihood Initiative of Empowerment), Tuli international Pvt Ltd & Sanjeev Bhargava & Associates prior to MFIN. He is handling the portfolios of Finance, Accounts, and Admin in MFIN. Shantanu is a CA intern & has pursued his M.Com from IGNOU, Delhi.