Johnson is an agricultural engineer from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. He brings in over 18 years of experience in the social development sector, supporting number of non-profits and community institutions; working with bilateral, multi-lateral, government and corporate. He has rich experience in project planning, monitoring & evaluation, process documentation, research, capacity.
Member
Pramel Gupta
Member
T. Muralidharan
Member
Shiv Kumar
Mr.Shiv Kumar is a key founder of Vrutti and the Catalyst group. Mr.Shiv Kumar supports Vrutti in business development, undertakes financial assurance audits, and is available for inputs on M&E. He also looks into enablers for the group
Member
N. Raghunathan
Mr.Raghunathan is a key founder of Vrutti and and the Catalyst group and was its Chief Functionary. Currently, as the Chief Mentor Mr. Raghunathan is closely involved mentoring the CEO and Executive council and in guiding Vrutti’s strategic direction and operations.
Member
V. Vivekanandan
Mr.Vivekanandan provides inputs on strategic direction and programmes, Currently as director leading the vertical within Vrutti focusing on Marine fishing communities improving their livelihoods. Having over 25 years of expertise in development.
Member
Raghini Badhrinarayanan
Raghini Badhrinarayanan is a post graduate from Institute of Rural Management, Anand. She has worked with pioneering organisations such as Pradan, Dhan Foundation, MSSRF and ASSEFA over the past two and half decades. She had the opportunity to work on multiple themes in the development sector from women’s empowerment, microfinance, natural resource management, facilitating philanthropy, development communication, capacity building at multiple levels etc.,
Our Advisors
Advisor
Kannan Gopalakrishnan
Advisor
TV Ramaswamy
Advisor
Vandana Viswanathan
Advisor
Prashant Mehra
Advisor
Kannan Gopalakrishnan
Kannan is passionate about livelihoods and sustainability; He is focused in Agriculture, Healthcare and Micro-Enterprises. He is Interested in supporting Social Enterprises to scale up (both Non-Profit and For-Profit)
His expertise lies in strong P&L performance delivering growth & profitability. He has experience in market-leading organizations like Unilever, Adidas and Nokia in India and South East Asia (directly in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia.)
Advisor
TV Ramaswamy
T V Ramaswamy used to Head Research & Development for ITC and supervises Environment, Health and Safety functions in the company. Prior to this, Mr. Ramaswamy was the Chief Operating Officer of the Cigarette Brands and Supply Chain of the Tobacco Division.
Advisor
Vandana Viswanathan
Vandana is co-founder and Partner at CoCoon. Her work over the last 15 years in CoCoon has been to enable businesses and leaders explore possibilities and find solutions in HR to scale, transition and grow. She has led transformations across organizations in different industries and growth stages – setting up new businesses, M&A scenarios, slow or accelerated growth, and challenges in the business ecosystem or in the internal ecosystem. Vandana worked in Hindustan Lever for the first 6 years of her career, as an HR manager supporting manufacturing sites and the R&D Centre. She has a Master’s in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Vandana serves on the Boards of Ujjivan (an NBFC-MFI; www.ujjjivan.com) and ARZ (www.arzindia.org) an NGO that works to combat trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation.
Advisor
Prashant Mehra
Prashant is a Social Intrapreneur at Mindtree building open access digital platforms to enhance Grassroots Livelihood and Skills. He is the Co-Founder and Chief Architect of Mindtree.org, a digital platform for social inclusion that works towards helping build micro businesses, connected communities, & networked marketplaces. Mindtree.org helps marginalised community members and micro-entrepreneurs operate and compete in mainstream economics, champions business innovation targeted towards livelihood and poverty reduction and fosters scalability in the social business ecosystem by way of building technology platforms and providing business consulting.
In his 20 years of industry experience he has extensively worked in the areas of architecture and consulting. His core competence is building large scale software platforms. Before founding I Got Garbage, he headed Mindtree’s Consulting business in UK & Europe.
Our Leadership
CEO
S.Balakrishnan
Director MEAL
Johnson Thangaraj
Mentor
Shiv Kumar
Chief Mentor
Raghunanthan Narayanan
CEO
S.Balakrishnan
Balakrishnan S, is the CEO of Vrutti. He has been part of the journey from the start when Vrutti started working with its 1st Farmer to today when it provides services to 100,000+ farmers growing with the organisation and managing multiple roles and responsibilities. His experience spans consulting , research, capacity building and implementing development initiatives. He has been instrumental in co- creating Vrutti’s main impact model 3 Fold. He was also the CEO of the Sex Workers Cooperative providing Financial Services to Marginalised women Graduation in science and completed post graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) from IGNOU. Has recently been trained on Strategic Non-profit management by HBS-Ahsoka University and Dasara; Also trained internationally on producer companies, and has exposure to different models of cooperatives in other countries.
Director MEAL
Johnson Thangaraj
Johnson is an agricultural engineer from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. He brings in over 18 years of experience in the social development sector, supporting number of non-profits and community institutions; working with bilateral, multi-lateral, government and corporate. He has rich experience in project planning, monitoring & evaluation, process documentation, research, capacity.
Mentor
Shiv Kumar
Shiv Kumar is the Founding Director of The Catalyst Group, a social enterprise that converges community capacities, market efficiencies, reach and government partnership to design sustainable solutions to poverty. With 26 years of dedicated work to institution building and social impact, in India and globally, Shiv lives the maxim ‘Act with urgency, be patient with outcomes’. He founded Swasti Health Catalyst, a pioneering organisation in public health, in 2004. Over the past 15 years, Swasti has reached more than 4 million urban and rural poor with health impact solutions, supported 87 community organisations on the path to sustainability, and helped partners, across 23 countries, succeed by raising 54 billion in resources and through solution designing. Shiv has raised 10 billion in the hands of the communities. He is today spearheading a system innovation effort, Invest for Wellness, to change the way healthcare is envisioned and delivered in India at scale, with a clear focus on reaching the unreached.
Chief Mentor
Raghunanthan Narayanan
Raghunathan is the Founding Director of The Catalyst Group, which houses Catalyst Management Services, Vrutti Livelihood Resource Centre, and Swasti Health Catalyst. The group has a combined strength of working across the levels, supporting through both management and domain expertise and a large resource base. He is a Social Entrepreneur, Impact Accelerator and Integrator. His passion is to facilitate solutions at a scale that eliminate inequities, marginalisation, hunger and poverty. He is focused on bringing change to small and medium producers and vulnerable communities through social enterprises models. Raghunathan has over 28 years of experience in the livelihood, social and rural sector. He is the creator of 3-Fold, a model with the intent of building wealthy, resilient and responsible smallholder farmers. In a consulting capacity Raghunathan has led a number of assignments in impact and program evaluations, value chain and market studies, business modelling and customer satisfaction. The cornerstone of these, and other such initiatives ideated by him is enhancing market engagement and competitiveness of large number of micro, small and medium entrepreneurs in the rural, and non-farm sectors, towards a larger goal of wealth creation for the entrepreneurs and improved market maturity of the economy.
Executive Council
Chief Mentor
Raghunanthan Narayanan
CEO
S.Balakrishnan
Lead - Finance & Accounts
Seethalakshmi
Director - Projects and 3 Fold lead AP & CG
Giridhar Goud.M.B
Director - Livelihood
Raghini
State Lead - 3Fold Karnataka & Andhra Pradesh
Narasimha Murthy
Chief Mentor
Raghunanthan Narayanan
Raghunathan is the Founding Director of The Catalyst Group, which houses Catalyst Management Services, Vrutti Livelihood Resource Centre, and Swasti Health Catalyst. The group has a combined strength of working across the levels, supporting through both management and domain expertise and a large resource base. He is a Social Entrepreneur, Impact Accelerator and Integrator. His passion is to facilitate solutions at a scale that eliminate inequities, marginalisation, hunger and poverty. He is focused on bringing change to small and medium producers and vulnerable communities through social enterprises models. Raghunathan has over 28 years of experience in the livelihood, social and rural sector. He is the creator of 3-Fold, a model with the intent of building wealthy, resilient and responsible smallholder farmers. In a consulting capacity Raghunathan has led a number of assignments in impact and program evaluations, value chain and market studies, business modelling and customer satisfaction. The cornerstone of these, and other such initiatives ideated by him is enhancing market engagement and competitiveness of large number of micro, small and medium entrepreneurs in the rural, and non-farm sectors, towards a larger goal of wealth creation for the entrepreneurs and improved market maturity of the economy.
CEO
S.Balakrishnan
Balakrishnan S, is the CEO of Vrutti. He has been part of the journey from the start when Vrutti started working with its 1st Farmer to today when it provides services to 100,000+ farmers growing with the organisation and managing multiple roles and responsibilities. His experience spans consulting , research, capacity building and implementing development initiatives. He has been instrumental in co- creating Vrutti’s main impact model 3 Fold. He was also the CEO of the Sex Workers Cooperative providing Financial Services to Marginalised women Graduation in science and completed post graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) from IGNOU. Has recently been trained on Strategic Non-profit management by HBS-Ahsoka University and Dasara; Also trained internationally on producer companies, and has exposure to different models of cooperatives in other countries.
Lead - Finance & Accounts
Seethalakshmi
Practising Chartered Accountant with 16 + years of experience in the field of Accounts and Finance.
Director - Projects and 3 Fold lead AP & CG
Giridhar Goud.M.B
Giridhar Goud is the Director – Projects and 3 Fold lead – Andhra Pradesh & Chhattisgarh in ‘Vrutti Livelihood Impact Partners’, Vrutti focused and impacts lives of small and medium producers and vulnerable communities through social enterprises models. Giridhar has 25 years of experience in the development sector and been served national and international organizations and projects such as IFAD, DHAN Foundation, India HIV AIDS Alliance. He has good exposure and head
right from grassroots to state and national level portfolios. He is an expert in Building Community Institutions, Farmer Collectives led agri business &; value chain management, Project Management, Partnership Building, microfinance, enterprise development etc., He is the part of Vrutti,3-Fold, a model with the intent of building wealthy, resilient and responsible smallholder farmers.
Director - Livelihood
Raghini
Raghini Badhrinarayanan is a post graduate from Institute of Rural Management, Anand. She has worked with pioneering organisations such as Pradan, Dhan Foundation, MSSRF and ASSEFA over the past two and half decades. She had the opportunity to work on multiple themes in the development sector from women’s empowerment, microfinance, natural resource management, facilitating philanthropy, development communication, capacity building at multiple levels etc., She is currently working as Director at Vrutti in the FishMaRC vertical besides provides support to other verticals within Vrutti. Helping to Make a Difference for the better in the lives and livelihoods of the communities she works with keeps her going.
State Lead - 3Fold Karnataka & Andhra Pradesh
Narasimha Murthy
Mr. Narasimha Murthy is from Magadi has been completed Graduation from Bangalore University, he has 18+ Years of experience in development sector mainly Micro-Finance, Education, Water and Health sector. Mr. Murthy has worked with DHAN Foundation, Vidya Poshak and WHEP Foundation prior join to Vrutti. Currently working with Vrutti-Livelihood Impact Partners since from Sept 2014 as Business Acceleration Unit (BAU) – Bagepalli, Chikkaballapura as BAU Head.
Mr. Narasimha Murthy is from Magadi has been completed Graduation from Bangalore University, he has 18+ Years of experience in development sector mainly Micro-Finance, Education, Water and Health sector. Mr. Murthy has worked with DHAN Foundation, Vidya Poshak and WHEP Foundation prior join to Vrutti. Currently working with Vrutti-Livelihood Impact Partners since from Sept 2014 as Business Acceleration Unit (BAU) – Bagepalli, Chikkaballapura as BAU Head.
Program Manager-3Fold
T N Bharati
T N Bharati has pursued her studies in Rural Development from Tata Dhan Academy Madurai, Tamil Nadu. She has 5 years experience in the development sector. She has worked on women empowerment programs, Livelihood programs, Rain fed agriculture and enterprise development programs as an executive. Some of the key interventional areas are Institution building, Livelihood promotion, financial inclusion to Rural women, capacity building, micro finance, health, education and social protection for lives, crop and cattle, recruitment, staffing, performance review, auditing, budgeting, enterprise promotion, licensing of enterprise, organizing exhibition etc. Her past experience has been with Dhan Foundation and Deshpande foundation. Currently she is the Program Manager for the 3Fold Flagship Program in Vrutti.
SERVICE LINE - Sustainable Agri, SWC
K Narayanasamy
Having completed MA Sociology, has been working in the development sector for the last 20 years. Having rich experience in Organic farming, Farm designing, Agri produces marketing, Project implementation, Field activities, process &; documentation, research and capacity building and domain expertise in livelihood, health, environment, water and education. Has been working with civil society, community based organizations, Educational institutions, and government supported projects in Tamilnadu and Karnataka. Lead and worked as a team member in various multi sector programmes and rural assignments in Tamilnadu. My journey started with Vrutti in October, 2015. I have actively involved in promotion of three Farmer Producer Companies and strengthening in Pudukkottai district.
BAU Head - Kanker
Satish Mishra
Satish Chandra Mishra is M.Sc (Agriculture)Sil Science from Kanpur University.He has an overall more than 18 years of experience in development sector. He has worked in the state of UP ,Rajasthan and Chattisgarh with various Government projects of watershed and irrigation. Working with Vrutti Livelihood Impact Partners since year2013 . He is Heading the BAU -Kanker (Chattisgarh).
Assistant Manager-Accounts
Ashish Rajvaidya
Ashish is a Post graduate in personnel management and industrial relation. He has devoted his carrier in the field of finance, accounts, HR and administration for over 19 years. He was associated with funding agencies in the past career. He is experienced in accounting systems and practices, interpreting figures and in analyzing information. Currently he executes all functions of accounts, finance and administration at Vrutti regional office Bhopal.
Accounts Officer
Manjula Malagi
Manjula Malagi is a Post graduate in M.Com from Karnataka University Dharwad, specialised in finance management and Taxation, worked as State finance office in KSWDC for 3 year, currently working in catalyst group since 2006. Has over 15years of experience in finance management and accounting.An analytical approach to work, Problem -solving skills and initiative, strong attention to detail and an investigative nature, Good time management and Quick books skills.Currently she executes all functions of accounts, finance at Vrutti head office Bangalore.
Accounts officer
Raju VS
RAJU V S: Bachelor of Commerce with Seventeen Plus years of experience in the field of Finance & Accounting Management and working in NGO sector since 2006. He was associated with CRY-Child Rights and You in the past career. He is experienced in accounting systems and practices, interpreting figures and in analyzing information. Currently he executes all functions of accounts, finance at Vrutti head office Bangalore.
Sr Executive- Accounts
Shanthala Shekhar
Bachelor of Commerce, 20 Yrs experience in the field of Finance & Accounts and worked in PVT Sector Since 1999. Associates with RESTOLEX PVT LTD., experienced in accounting and Finance HR and Admin systems and practices, interpreting figures and in analyzing information. Currently executes all functions of accounts, finance at Vrutti head office Bangalore.
Lead - Finance & Accounts
Seethalakshmi
Practising Chartered Accountant with 16 + years of experience in the field of Accounts and Finance.
Assistant Human Resource Manager
Divya Susan Mathew
Divya is a Post Graduate in MSW with Human Resource Management as specialization from CSRD-ISWR, Ahmednagar- Maharashtra. She was part of The Hans Foundation Fellowship Program 2019-2020 batch, as a fellow worked with the tribal communities in Meghalaya. She has been trained on Project designing, Community mental health and Community based Inclusive development. She joined Vrutti in 2021 and is currently handling the HR related operations and functions for Vrutti at the Head Office in Bangalore.
Communication Manager
Rema Sundar
Manager - MEAL
RajeshKanna
Rajeshkanna completed degree in Bachelor of Engineering at Madras University. He has over 13 years of experience in the social development sector on community development, health and livelihoods. He has rich experience in monitoring & evaluation, impact assessment, documentation and research. Being a Manger – Monitoring, Evaluation And Learning (MEAL) at Vrutti he supports design and development of M&E Solution, Capacity building of Field Team, Support for implementing technology solutions for 3Fold model and all project interventions. He also supports Catalyst group’s initiatives on Monitoring & Evaluation, impact measures, learnings, etc for Tamil Nadu state.
Comm & Doc Manager - MEAL
S Sathiamoorthy
Having completed graduation in Electronics and Hardware engineering started the career as Hardware engineer and continued to serve as an IT professional and IT entrepreneur for 24 years. Joined CMS in 2014 and involved in IFC sugarcane, IIHS sanitation, UPNRM evaluation and DFID assignments. Contributed to the formation and monitoring of FPOs in NABARD and TNSFAC projects in Tamil Nadu and also played a supportive role in the development of Business Acceleration Unit, Pudukkottai. Presently, serving as Communication and Document Manager in Vrutti MEAL team since October 2017.
MEAL Associate
Shruti Singh
Advisor, V-LIFE
Muralidharan T
Muralidharan, 66 years, is a Director on the Board of Vrutti, having over 42 years of experience of working in Banking, International Donor Agency, a Consulting Organisation for the development sector, Two Leading NGOs and an NBFC as an Independent Director. Has domain expertise in Access to Finance and enterprise development for marginalised communities – microfinance, rural finance, financing value chains, sustainable agriculture, livelihoods development – dairy, NTFP, fisheries sector. Worked on financial education for communities vulnerable to HIV AIDS on financial security – different financial products – savings, credit, insurance, pension, etc, and passionate about building mechanisms for service delivery to the last mile. Under Financial Education, worked on training of trainer modules, communication materials in different local languages, as a part of the Avahan Phase 3 Programme of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Has specialist skills in creation of specialised funds, monitoring and evaluation of financial institutions – MFIs, Cooperatives, NBFCs, and other specialised financial institutions. Has experience in evaluation of financial institutions for social performance and smart campaigns and also has experience in managing large projects funded by European Union, Multiple donors and also in disaster management and risk reduction. He is a Board of Trustee in an NGO – Navya Disha which works in the areas of education, environment, health and sanitation. He was also an Independent Director on the Board of an NBFC MFI – IDF Financial Services P Ltd – a microfinance institution operational in Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Director - Projects and 3 Fold lead AP & CG
Giridhar Goud.M.B
Giridhar Goud is the Director – Projects and 3 Fold lead – Andhra Pradesh & Chhattisgarh in ‘Vrutti Livelihood Impact Partners’, Vrutti focused and impacts lives of small and medium producers and vulnerable communities through social enterprises models. Giridhar has 25 years of experience in the development sector and been served national and international organizations and projects such as IFAD, DHAN Foundation, India HIV AIDS Alliance. He has good exposure and head
right from grassroots to state and national level portfolios. He is an expert in Building Community Institutions, Farmer Collectives led agri business &; value chain management, Project Management, Partnership Building, microfinance, enterprise development etc., He is the part of Vrutti,3-Fold, a model with the intent of building wealthy, resilient and responsible smallholder farmers.
Director-FishMARC
V Vivekanandan
Vivekanandan has been working with marine fishing communities of India for over three decades designing, initiating and managing development programmes. He was a full timer of the South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies (SIFFS) for 26 years, most of it as its Chief Executive. Currently he is the head of the Fisheries Management Resource Centre (FishMARC), a division of Vrutti Livelihood Impact Partners. He is now-a-days based in Chennai and his priorities is fish resource management and fisherwomen’s livelihoods.
Director - Livelihood
Raghini
Raghini Badhrinarayanan is a post graduate from Institute of Rural Management, Anand. She has worked with pioneering organisations such as Pradan, Dhan Foundation, MSSRF and ASSEFA over the past two and half decades. She had the opportunity to work on multiple themes in the development sector from women’s empowerment, microfinance, natural resource management, facilitating philanthropy, development communication, capacity building at multiple levels etc., She is currently working as Director at Vrutti in the FishMaRC vertical besides provides support to other verticals within Vrutti. Helping to Make a Difference for the better in the lives and livelihoods of the communities she works with keeps her going.
Senior Manager VLIFE
Krishnamurthy N
An Electronics Engineer with over 28 years of experience in Training, Channel – Key Account Management, Financial Inclusion, Health Care, and the Social Sector. worked closely with NGOs, FPOs, and SHGs by conducting training on due diligence, governance, compliance, fundraising, livelihood programs, market linkages, microcredit loans, project auditing, and capacity building of community-based organizations. Krishnamurthy has worked with MicroGraam Social Development Foundation (NBFC P2P), Billion loans Financial Services (NBFC), worked with small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Currently he is the Senior Manager of VLIFE
Project Manager
Bhagwat Masaji Shinde
Bhagwat Masaji Shinde is a post graduate in Social Sciences and has worked with various NGOs during his 25-year-journey in the development sector. He has the skills and capacities required for executing various interventions around Institution Building, Agriculture & Allied activities, and Networks of Women SHGs in Maharashtra. Bhagwat has an enriching experience in establishing sustainable institutions across the themes, team building, putting mechanisms and process of sustainability and strategic planning.
