Dr. Pratyush Panda is a Corporate Sustainability / Philanthropy professional with three decades of work experience with CARE, Vedanta, ACC Limited, LTIMindtree & Charities Aid Foundation. At present he is working as CEO, AllCargo Foundation looking after family philanthropy and AllCargo Group ESG.

He holds a Ph.D in Climate action based Public Policy and D.Litt. in Green Transition & Public Policy, a Post Grad in Sociology and a MBA from XIM-Bhubaneswar. He is a philanthropist by himself also a seasoned marathon runner.

Ms. Smita Jha is a strategy and social impact leader with over 30 years of experience across management consulting, corporate leadership, and the development sector. She advises various organisations on systems change, institutional strengthening, innovative financing, and cross-sector partnerships.

Currently an Independent Consultant, Smita works with organisations including Deloitte South Asia as their Senior Advisor, UNDP on governance transformation, digital public infrastructure, philanthropy, and scaling social impact. She was previously the Founding CEO of the Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS) and Regional Director (India/Asia) at the Centre for Public Impact, founded by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where she led initiatives on public systems transformation and collaborative governance.

Earlier, she held leadership positions at Genpact, Hindustan Times, and PwC, driving strategy and business transformation. Throughout her career, she has worked at the intersection of government, business, philanthropy, and civil society, bringing a systems perspective to addressing complex development challenges. Smita serves on advisory groups and supports organisations in strengthening strategy, partnerships, and institutional effectiveness to deliver greater development impact.

Dr. Nalin Jena is an accomplished education development leader with 30+ years of experience across national and international organizations including the World Bank, USAID, EU, India's Ministry of Education, and an Indian NGO called PRIA. With professional experience in education and training sector and cross-sector engagement spanning four regions—South Asia, East and Southern Africa, Europe and Central Asia, and East Asia Pacific—Dr. Jena has driven transformative education policy and innovative, evidence-based projects across early childhood care, primary and secondary education, higher education, and skills training. Notable experience includes leadership in fragile and conflict-affected states (Ukraine, Somalia, Afghanistan) and low-to-high-income countries.

Mr. Sudarshan Suchi serves as the Chief Development Officer at Reliance Foundation. Formerly the CEO of Save the Children, Sudarshan is a seasoned civil society leader and passionate about participatory practices for empowering communities to lead transformation. He has rich local and global experience in academics, development, and in the corporate environment. An alumnus of St. Stephens College, Delhi University, and Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Sussex, UK, Sudarshan is a leading development professional, with myriad professional achievements including successful advocacy for reforms in cooperative laws and the Producer Company Act Enactment, turnaround of AP Dairy cooperatives, launching of the largest bio-diesel cultivation initiative in India, and executing one of the largest rural transformation initiatives at Reliance Foundation.

Over the past three decades, Sudarshan has held leadership positions with distinguished organisations. He also brings in academic experience, having teaching experience at IRMA and IIHMR, and a regular resource person at ILSS and ISDM. Sudarshan also serves on Governance platforms, being on the advisory board of Young Lives, and on the Board of Studies of IIHMR’s Rural Management Institute and the Board of Socoety for Promotion of wastelands Development (SPWD).

Dr. Aditya Bahadur is the Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. Previously he was Principal Researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London, UK. Prior to that he served as Regional Programme Development Manager at Oxford Policy Management and as Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute. Aditya has published widely on climate change and development in peer reviewed academic journals and contributed to IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. He completed his undergraduate studies at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University and has an MA and a PhD from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK. He completed his Postdoctoral Research at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies at Columbia University, New York where he wrote 'Resilience Reset: Creating Resilient Cities in the Global South' (Routledge 2022). 

Dr. Sonajharia Minz is a Professor of Computer Science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, and serves as the Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair in Transforming Indigenous Knowledge Research Governance (IKRG) and Rematriation. In this role, she contributes to advancing Indigenous rights, knowledge systems, and self-determination. For three years (June 2020 - June 2023), she served as Vice Chancellor of Sido Kanhu Murmu University (SKMU), Dumka, Jharkhand, a region densely populated by the Santal Adivasi (indigenous) community. During her term as VC, she was the only tribal woman Vice Chancellor in the country. She hails from the Oraon tribe. Dr. Minz is trained in mathematics and computer science. Her research areas include Spatial Analytics, Geo-spatial Informatics, Data Mining, Big Data, etc.  However, she actively engages with issues of the Marginalized, Women, Dalits and Adivasis. In response to the undermining of the Indigenous culture, languages and knowledge by mainstream Indian society and academia, as Vice Chancellor, she initiated a Master's program in Santal Culture Studies at Sido Kanhu Murmu University to foster research on Santal language and literature, art and culture, region, philosophy, knowledge systems, agricultural practices, etc. Presently, intellectual property rights of the tribal (indigenous) knowledge, and ethical guidelines for research on tribes are her foci.