Team

At Apni Shala, people from many different walks of life come together to work towards a shared vision. Our team includes individuals with diverse life experiences, skills, and identities — including differences in gender, sexuality, religion, caste, mental health, neurodiversity, and economic backgrounds. We believe this diversity makes our work richer and more meaningful, and we ensure that voices from all parts of our community are represented at every level of the organisation.
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The way we work together is guided by values of mindfulness, inclusion, and respect for every person’s story. We draw inspiration from Narrative Practices, Diversity & Inclusion, and Constructivist ideas. Our human resources processes are created and reviewed by the entire team, so they continue to reflect these values and respond to the needs of everyone in the organisation.

Connecting Circle

Abhijeet Dhurve

Program Lead,
​SEL Programmes

Mayuri Golambde

Government Partnerships Lead​,
Central Team

Pranali Patil

SEL Curriculum Lead,
​SEL Programmes

Priyanka Kale

Program Lead,
​SEL Programmes

Priyanka Shrivastav

School Lead,
Khoj

Rohit Kumar

Co-Director and Chief Executive Officer

Sandhya Singh

School Lead,
Khoj

Sangeeta Zombade 

Co-Director,
Central Team

 

 

Inner Circle

Akash Gaikwad

Associate Curriculum Lead,
​​SEL Programmes

Amar Dongre

Admin Associate,
​Khoj

Ami Momaya

SEL Facilitator,
​SEL Programmes

Amreen Ansari

Associate Programme Lead,
​​SEL Programmes

Anam Khan

Teaching Intern,
​​Khoj

Blessila

SEL Facilitator,
​SEL Programmes

Daya Chavan

Teacher,
Khoj

Disha Bhatt

SEL Facilitator,
​SEL Programmes

Gauri Narayankar

SEL Facilitator,
​SEL Programmes

Harshita Saraogi

SEL Intern,
SEL Programmes

Jesika Bamne

SEL Facilitator,
​SEL Programmes

Jyoti Joseph

Teaching Intern,
Khoj

Khushboo Kushwaha

Teaching Intern,
Khoj

Kisan Salbul

SEL Facilitator,
​SEL Programmes

Komal Pol

SEL Intern,
SEL Programmes

Lalita Satarkar

Teacher,
Khoj

Lekha Menon

Associate Lead, Social Worker
Khoj

Mala Naidu

Helper,
​Khoj

Manasi Chorge

SEL Intern,
SEL Programmes

Mandira More

Teaching Intern,
Khoj

Nasir Khan

Associate Lead, Government Partnerships,​Khoj

Nayana Kale

Teacher,
Khoj

Nidhi Singh

School Counsellor,
​Khoj

Nilofer Khan

Teaching Intern,
Khoj

Nima Gaikwad

Social Worker,
Khoj

Nimisha Vichare

Teaching Intern,
​​Khoj

Parul Mishra

Teaching Intern,
Khoj

Pooja Badekar

Teacher and Curriculum Support,
​Khoj

Pooja Raghuvanshi

Associate Lead, Class Teacher and School Admin Support​, ​​Khoj

Prashant Waglode

SEL Facilitator,
SEL Programmes

Priya Gupte

Communication Executive,
Central Team

Priyanka Tiwari

Teacher,
​Khoj

Radhika Kanojia

Teacher,
Khoj

Raj Talekar

Teacher,
Khoj

Rajeshwari Counder

SEL Facilitator,
SEL Programmes

Radhika Kanojia

Teacher and Curriculum Support
Khoj

Roshani Dhumal

Teaching Intern,
​Khoj

Sadhana Giri

Teaching Intern,
Khoj

Sanjana Jadhav

Admin Executive,
Central Team

Shahana Ansari

Teacher,
​Khoj

Shital Palve

Programme Coordinator,
​SEL Programmes

Shivani Mayekar

Programme Coordinator,
SEL Programmes

Siddhesh Powar

SEL Facilitator,
SEL Programmes

Siddharth Gupta

SEL Facilitator,
​​SEL Programmes

Sita Deshmukh

Helper,
Khoj

Smita Vaidya

School Counsellor,
Khoj

Sukanya Bhosale

Associate Lead, Fundraising
Central Team

Tarannum Parween

SEL Facilitator,
SEL Programmes

Trushal Dongre

SEL Facilitator,
SEL Programmes

Vanisha Shetty

Associate School Lead,
Khoj

Vivek Zombade

Admin and HR Executive,
Central Team

Advisors

Anand Nair

Anand Nair is an Advisor for Apni Shala’s Branding and Communications. He is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at 4AM Worldwide - a multidisciplinary creative communications firm with a presence in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and New Delhi.

Anukriti Goyal

Anukriti Goyal is a co-founder of Apni Shala. Her work in the past decade has cut across thematic areas of grassroots development. She believes in the power of connections and analogies across sectors. You will often find her connecting dots, resources, and people. Anukriti has a bachelor's degree in Polymer Sciences and a master's degree in Social Entrepreneurship.

Fiona Reynolds

Fiona Reyonolds is the Deputy Head of School at the American School of Bombay. Prior to this, she was an administrator in both the American School of Bombay and Graded School in Sao Paulo and has been an international educator for 23 years, working in Brazil, India, the Ivory Coast, Mexico, and Poland. Her current focus is strategic planning, implementation, and leveraging the expertise of teachers to develop small- and large-scale change. Fiona has presented at a variety of conferences on organizing schools for change, creating developmentally appropriate middle schools, using learning spaces/environment to support learning, professional growth and evaluation, the future landscape for children and why schools have to change, differentiation, and setting a vision and strategic planning.

Kavita Anand

Kavita Anand is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Adhyayan. Through her work, she is catalysing a committed learning community of educators across India, to transform the learning of students. For more than three decades as an educator, researcher, funder, school and system leader, and now edupreneur, she has worked towards ensuring ‘a good school for every child’. She was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship in 2015 for her social entrepreneurship and single-minded focus on bringing quality to schools through leadership development. Over her career spanning 30 years, she has worked in organizations such as Aga Khan Education Services and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust. She has provided long-term consultancy services programmes of the Open University, UK and the National College of Teaching and Leadership, UK.

Rahul Gupta

Rahul Gupta is the Founder of Rajalka Consulting. He has worked as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) with The Akanksha Foundation. He has specialised in Ed. Leadership, Program Strategy, People Development and school transformation initiatives. As a Consulting School Coach for Khoj, he advises the leadership on school leadership, results framework and student learning outcome.

Sucharita Palepu

Sucharita Palepu has over 30 years of professional experience in the area of Human Resources and Financial services, having worked in several global organizations in senior leadership roles. She is an Independent Director and a Strategic Advisor specialising in Organization & HR Transformation initiatives. Her passion includes contributing to the culture building and governance mechanisms in Organizations to be truly inclusive , vibrant and progressive workplaces.

Swetha Ranganathan

Swetha Ranganathan is a co-founder of Apni Shala. Over the past decade she has worked in the space of education, mental health, theatre, and the arts in India and Canada. She enjoys putting together organizational processes and structures to support the complex community engagement programming that non-profits do. Swetha has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering and a master’s degree in Social Entrepreneurship and is a trained Theatre of the Oppressed facilitator.

Kelli Meeker

Kelli Meeker is the High School IB Coordinator and Learning Leader at the International School of Zug and Lucern. Previously, she was living in Mumbai, India where she served as the Teaching and Learning Coordinator at the American School of Bombay. In 2010 she left her position as a school Literacy Coach and Reading Specialist in Northern California to work internationally. Her first position was as a classroom teacher at Graded, the American School of Sao Paulo, in Brazil. She believes deeply in the potential of creating student-centered learning environments, the responsibility of schools to build equitable and inclusive spaces for learners, and that social and emotional learning and wellness are equally as important as cognitive learning - for all community members. 

Trustee Board
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Chetna Duggal

Chetna is an Associate Professor at the School of Human Ecology, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She is a practising psychotherapist with over 15 years of experience. She is project director for the School Initiative for Mental Health Advocacy (SIMHA), an initiative that endeavours to promote well-being of young people in schools through advocacy, research and capacity building. She also heads Rahbar, an initiative to promote training, supervision and professional development for mental health practitioners in India.

Dr. Disha Devi Prasad Nawani 

Dr. Nawani is the Dean and Professor, School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She is also a member of Drafting Committee of India Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (2020), a member of Development of Handbook of Textual material, NCERT (2020) and the Managing Editor, Contemporary Education Dialogue, SAGE. Her research interests lie particularly around,  curricular, pedagogic and assessment-related issues, teaching-learning resources, teacher education, analysis of educational policies and programmes etc.

Rishabh Lalani

Rishabh Lalani is an independent fundraising strategist with ~11 years of experience in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. In the last 7 years, he has consulted with family offices, corporate foundations, business incubators, and civil society groups to raise close to USD 6 million for philanthropic funding for a variety of causes. Most recently, he volunteered to raise funds for 54 causes across India for Covid-19 relief raising nearly USD 720k in a short span of 6 months. He holds a masters degree from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai.

Amrita Nair

With degrees in Psychology and Social Entrepreneurship, Amrita co-founded Apni Shala, where she champions inclusive education and well-being initiatives. Her work includes DEI training, counseling, and Theatre of the Oppressed facilitation. A former WIPRO Seeding Fellow and trained DEI facilitator, she has developed policies to enhance employee well-being across identities. Currently, she consults with Adhyayan Quality Education  Services.