SAVITHA SURI -PRESIDENTSavitha Suri holds a PG in Sociology and PG Diplomas in Mass Communications, Cyber Law & Cyber Forensics.

She works in the area of documenting textile & craft history and traditions, imparting digital literacy to independent weavers enabling them access the online marketplace and workshops, webinars & textiles trails to increase awareness and access of authentic information.

She has led two market revival initiatives of endangered weaves and co-authored 2 books on textiles and business management in weaving clusters.

She recently curated a 6 week digital festival on the North East for Mumbai airport’s Jaya Museum which has been submitted to UNESCO as a unique initiative during lockdown to create awareness on living heritage.

DR. SHAHEEN DESAI - VICE PRESIDENTShaheen Desai is a Director at Innovant Healthcare Solutions LLP and Cartier Healthcare LLP, bringing innovation in medical technologies to India.

Her role of Social Mentoring started a decade ago when she started working with various NGOs at the grassroot level, helping them develop teaching projects and skill development projects in the local slum school. She is associated with a German NGO- Little Big World- and helps raise funds for projects of state based NGOs

An ace portrait and textile photographer, she was the Lead Photographer for the book ‘Assam- a journey through its textiles’ published in 2019.

LIST OF MEMBERSSuparna Tandon

Varsha Panicker

Rupa Naik

Niveditha Koppiker

Vaibbhavi P Ranavaade

Deepa Krishnan

Masai Chatla

Belaa Sanghvi

Priya Kadapa Shah

Chinmayee Deulgaonkar

Mrudula Deshmukh Bele

Leena Saldanha Joshi

Aparna Ramchandra

Rohini Jog

Nupur Chaturvedi

Anaida Parvaneh

Meena Menon

Kavita Bajpai

Nandita Puri

SUPARNA TANDON ( MEMBER)Suparna Tandon has been a development banker

for the last three decades. Her work has taken

her to some of the remotest corners of India and

helped her gain valuable insights into

communities, livelihoods and cultures. She is

currently heading a Non Bank Finance Company

providing financial solutions to other entities in

the rural off farm space. Suparna loves travelling,

reading, listening to music and most of all,

meeting and interacting with people.

VARSHA PANICKER ( MEMBER)When the vision to build a smart, eco-friendly, sustainable community took shape, Varsha found expression and unabated love in the textiles and specifically handloom and hand crafted art, and thus found Dastakar LLP to seed and nurture this vision. She found immediate solace in an urban landscape by training girls from shelter homes to hand paint, embroider, block print and natural dye handloom fabric. She also received the Enterprising Women of the Year 2019 award by the Ministry of MSME for her work.

After graduating from BHU in Visual Arts and designing communications for over two decades for various corporates, her initial foray into entrepreneurship was by co-founding 'aha! inspired', a decade ago, that currently helps small businesses, especially startups, to build brands and grow sustainably in a highly competitive environment.

RUPA NAIK ( MEMBER)With over 30 years of professional experience with trade organizations, presently Rupa is with MVIRDC World Trade Center Mumbai and specialises in trade promotion and trade facilitation. This include helping state and central governments in policy formulation, representing various issues confronting development of trade to conceptualizing trade programmes and leading trade delegations to countries across the world and have excellent interaction with diplomats, overseas trade agencies, ministries of trade and commerce as well as Indian embassies overseas. During this period, she has facilitated in signing over 300 MoUs with international industry associations, government and trade promotion organizations to accelerate international trade by creating opportunities to MSMEs.

NIVEDITA KOPPIKER (MEMBER)Nivedita Koppiker is passionate about art in all forms. Although she charted a more traditional path during her early years as a student of commerce, she turned to her avid interest in the arts, interior decor and handwoven textiles while being a full-time homemaker. No detail is too small for her as she strives to achieve perfection in any task that she takes upon herself. Her ability to connect and forge relationships with diverse people is a worthy asset

DR. VAIBBHAVI P RANAVAADE (MEMBER)An educator, researcher and designer with over 20 years experience, she has been Founding HoD of premier design schools in India.

Her research experience includes a Doctoral Thesis on ‘A Semiotic study of the indian sari’.

She is also Co founder and Principal designer at ‘Vaibbhavi P’ - a label that works towards providing sustainable livelihoods to Indian craftspersons.

DEEPA KRISHNAN (MEMBER)Deepa Krishnan is an alumni of IIM-Calcutta. She is the founder of Magic Tours of India, a responsible tourism company which provides training and employment for students from slums in Mumbai & Delhi. The company offers textiles & crafts tours across India, as well as cuisine trails & historical explorations.

She is the head of Abhyudaya, a non-profit founded by Bhavan's SPJIMR. Abhyudaya works with students from the slums of Mumbai’s K-West ward. SPJIMR has won the UN Global Compact Network award for the work done by Abhyudaya in quality education. Abhyudaya Community Initiative makes traditional craft and textile based products.

Deepa has served on the National Taskforce for Handlooms for NABARD & the Ministry of Textiles. She is passionate about social entrepreneurship and mentors Creative and Cultural businesses for IIM-Ahmedabad.

MASAI CHATLA (MEMBER)Masai is a Commerce graduate and manages the retail division of Chatla Textile Industries and Chatla Handlooms.

She won the Second Prize for ‘Best Small Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 08 and is committed to provide customers with high quality products and good service.

BELAA SANGHVI(MEMBER)Belaa Sanghvi’s career spans over 4 decades. Her work in revival of handloom and handicraft has been showcased in over 23 countries.

A speaker at several eminent platforms, Belaa’s love for handlooms began very early.

Over the years, her work has allowed her to generate employment and revive traditional textiles.

PRIYA KADAPA SHAH (MEMBER)Priya Kadapa Shah is an educator and financial consultant whose experience includes Operations, Projects, Learning & Development .

She is passionate about handlooms and would like to use her professional skills to address core issues affecting the sector.

CHINMAYEE DEULGAONKAR (MEMBER)Chinmayee Deulgaonkar is a Food Technologist by qualification and profession with over 2 decades of experience in standardisation, Certification and QC protocols.

A handloom enthusiast, she hopes to leverage her professional skills to help women entrepreneurs approach their business in a more effective manner.

DR. MRUDULA DESHMUKH BELE (MEMBER)A pharmacist by training, Mrudula is also keenly interested in IP Rights and Regulatory affairs in Pharmaceutical industry. She holds a PGDip in IP law from NALSAR, LLB from Pune University and LLM from University of Turin.

She is passionate about handlooms and is keen on contributing in a manner that engages her professional skills to identify and provide possible solutions to issues faced by the sector.

LEENA SALDANHA JOSHI (MEMBER)Leena Saldanha is a poet, professional storyteller and media professional..

She has worked with NGOs in the tribal hinterlands of Maharashtra and with the urban poor in the slums of Pune. In the ten years that she worked in one of Pune’s biggest ad agencies, she spent 4 years as the agency’s Creative Director and Chief Strategy Officer.

She went on to set up The Red Tree Design Studio, one of Pune’s leading brand and business strategy consultancies. Her day job, that of being a brand strategist, sees her work with some of the biggest brands in the country and with names from across the world.

APARNA RAMCHANDRA (MEMBER)Aparna Ramachandra is the Founder Director of India's first Credit advocacy, Credit Advisory and Credit counseling company [www.rectifycredit.com]. She has an M.A in Economics, PG in Banking & Finance and is a CFP. She has been a columnist with Mint, Outlook Money, Femina, Moneylife etc. and conducts workshops for women on Finance . Debt and its implications, gender based, emotional effect of debt has always fascinated her. Seeing debt from an emotional, humanitarian perspective has been her USP. Women are made to believe they are not good in numbers, but she believes it needs to be undone. She also teaches at various B Schools in Mumbai. Network 18 has published Aparna's book titled " Why is my Credit Report Screwed up". and she has gone on to publish two more books revolving around debt.

ROHINI JOG (MEMBER)After spending 10 years in promotional marketing and another 10 in social development, Rohini started Craft Circle in 2016. It’s a lifestyle retail store that sells ethically produced and hand-crafted apparel, accessories and decor which are made by non-profits, fair profits and independent artisans. Craft Circle's mission is to promote and support fair trade and sustainable products. Rohini has consulted for and mentored Himjoli, a social venture company generating employment in Kumaon region. She has helped to grow Unltd India’s Bombay Connect, a collaborative space for social entrepreneurs. She has led Journeys for Change across India, and curated programs for the BMW-Guggenheim Lab. Rohini has a degree in hotel management, a degree in sociology, and an MBA from Pune University .

NUPUR CHATURVEDI TUTEJA (MEMBER)Human Resources professional turned blogger and entrepreneur, Nupur describes herself as a ‘glass half-full’ kind of person, with a creative bent. A keen learner with a passion to learn about textiles across India, she moved out of her 15 year long corporate career and after a sabbatical, started blogging along with her sister about crafts and weaves across India. This led her to interact with many makers and get a sense of their pain points, challenges and aspirations. This informal guidance was soon turned into a social enterprise, TheWeaversCo, that she co-founded with Shilpa Sharma, her sister and partner, with a focus on organising the weavers’ ecosystem, to enable them to be ‘saksham’ or self-sufficient, give them access to new markets and enable them to be successful weaver-entrepreneurs.

ANAIDA PARVANEH (MEMBER)One of the first RJs of Mumbai’s FM, Anaida entered the music industry, launching India’s first single. She continued to sing and release ,usic in languages, becoming the first Indian artist to feature on Buddha Bar.

An established singer, composer, producer and video director, she moved to Meditation music. She is also an accomplished painter and does unique PErsian miniature carvings on leather.

She is also a Consultant with the entertainment and hospitality industry, partnering with Olive and winning Chef of the Year .

She is also associated with several charities and initiatives over the past many years.

MEENA MENON(MEMBER)

Meena Menon is an independent journalist and

former bureau chief, The Hindu, Mumbai. She is

the author of the books, Riots and After in

Mumbai, Reporting Pakistan, Organic Cotton

Reinventing the Wheel, and has co authored

with Uzramma, A Frayed History, the Journey of

Cotton in India.

DR. KAVITA LOHIYA BAJPAI (MEMBER)Dr. Kavita Bajpai is a passionate educationist with

an experience of more than 20 years in the

sector, 10 of them in leadership roles.

Having worked with reputed institutions, she is

known for her team building skills and has also

been working for the past decade in heritage

conservation along with developing programs for

the pre-teen age group to raise awareness on our

rich and diverse heritage.

She is currently Academic Director- The

International School of Thrissur and Co founder

of KB Edu Ventures.

NANDITA PURI (MEMBER)Nandita Puri is a well known author and

journalist as well as the Founder of the Om Puri

Foundation that works towards sensitising the

society towards the needs of artisan communities

including weavers.

SEEMA KULKARNISeema Kulkarni is one of the founding members of Society for Promoting

Participative Eco-system Management, Pune (SOPPECOM). She is presently

working as a Senior Fellow in SOPPECOM, Pune and co-ordinating the

gender and rural livelihoods activities within the organisation. She has

coordinated various studies and programmes around decentralisation,

gender and land, water and sanitation. She has published several

articles/book chapters around issues of gender, water, sanitation and rural

livelihoods. She also teaches a few courses on water and equity and gender

and rural livelihoods in Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and

Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune.

She is currently the National Facilitation Team member of Mahila Kisan

Adhikar Manch or Forum for Women farmers rights (MAKAAM).

SOPPECOM is the state anchor for MAKAAM and also works as a

co-secretariat at the national level.

She has been associated with Stree Mukti Sangharsh Chalwal, the movement

for the rights of Single women in Western Maharashtra and is actively

involved in the Coalition of women’s groups in Maharashtra, Stree Mukti

Andolan Sampark Samiti.