about me.

Namaste.

I am a social entrepreneur, thinker, design strategist and explorer. I hold an MA, MFA, Executive MBA and completed both The Systems Change Leadership and Non Profit Leadership programs with Harvard’s Kennedy School and Business School, respectively.

I have led for-profit, not-for-profit and hybrid organisations. Recently I collaborated on a Longevity Finance book and have given a TED talk that uses the ways in which AI is unlocking progress on longevity science, to exemplify the ways it is influencing all the systems we rely on.

I currently work on a portfolio of projects and consult to a range of social innovation organisations, foundations, governments, corporates and individual leaders. My areas of focus sit in Climate/Nature, AI/Tech/HAI, Community development/Partnership & Strategy for scale, Leadership /Organisational transformation/Governance.

I am the CEO Emiritus of Barefoot College (Social Work & Research Center), Co-Founder & CEO of Barefoot College International (now Bindi International)- thus grounded in 2 decades of practitioner systems change work. I personally travelled to, worked in communities and laid the groundwork for local partnerships and Government alignments in 76 countries while leading Barfoot College. I worked deeply with both the Ministry of External Affairs and The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India alongside Indian High Commissions, Embassies and Consul Generals across the Global South. I established the Barefoot College Zanzibar in 2014, the second Barefoot College to be established outside India. I directed the establishment of Friends of Barefoot College USA (501c3) and was a founding committee member of both Friends of Barefoot College Switzerland.I am a member of Bindi International Charitable Association in Switzerland, where I continue to champion the exceptional and deeply innovative work of the India based team who are responsible for the creation and expansion of the Women’s Barefoot Solar Engineering Initiative, the ENRICHE holistic women’s enterprise curriculum and agri-livelihood programs.

I am a former mountaineer and avid sportswoman, with a uniquely fearless and radically collaborative leadership style. My friends tell me, “I see the world as I would like it to be”…..

My personal commitment to service- for people and for the planet has moved me to work in nearly 100 countries at the intersection of climate, human development & technology. I live between Switzerland, Africa and New Zealand. I have had the enormous privilege to spent nearly 15 years living and working in rural India, guided and taught by the most extraordinary human beings and rural communities, for whom I am deeply grateful and with whom I have learned, unlearned and relearned, endlessly.

I am a systems thinker who believes we are only limited in our aspirations, by the mediocrity of our own thoughts.

I would like to see a genuine economic transformation from extraction to value creation, from biodiversity loss to gain, from leaving human potential wasted to engaging its full capacity.I work everyday towards that goal- so the world I leave behind will be one of wonder, opportunity and a place where each human being can reach their own aspirations.