Mr. Pushpadhar Das, chairperson
He is a graduate from St. Stephens’ College, Delhi and has done his PGDM from IIM Bangalore. He is a Member of Gramya Vikas Mancha, Nalbari and also an Advisor to Sitajakhala Dugdha Utpadak SSL, one of the oldest and successful milk cooperatives of Northeast India. He is well known as an agri-entrepreneur with vast knowledge and skills on farm machinery bank, multi-cropping, crop-diversification, dairy, pisciculture, and SRI. Mr. Das has led the MIS implementation at ASOMI and also been offering consultancy on Contract Farming of medicinal and aromatic plants as well as horticulture crops.
Mr. Manoj Kumar Basumatary, Treasurer
Mr. Basumatary is a graduate from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. He is the co-founder of Symbiotic Foods Pvt. Ltd. and also acting as its CEO. Symbiotic Foods is a unique Social Enterprise established to promote pig rearing and currently working in the value chain of piggery sub-sector. He is a pioneer in establishing pig rearing as a profitable livelihood opportunity and currently acclaimed as a trendsetting Social Entrepreneur. Prior to starting his own social enterprise, he worked as a Chief Manager at State Bank of India (SBI) in New Delhi for 15 years and also worked as a Partner in Udayachal Ventures for 3 years.
Dr. Chandana Goswami,
vice-chairperson
Professor Chandana Goswami is the Dean, School of Management Sciences at Tezpur University. Earlier she was the Director of Internal Quality Assurance Cell, and also was the Head, Dept. Of Business Administration. She did her MBA and PhD from Gauhati University, FDP from IIM Ahmedabad and was a British Chevening Fellow in 2004. She is involved with teaching and research at Tezpur University and has taught for more than 25 years. She has produced eight PhDs so far. She has presented research papers within the country as well as abroad. Additionally, she is a corporate trainer and has conducted trainings for Powergrid and Numaligarh Refinery Oil India to name a few.
Mr. Apoorva oza, member
Mr. Apoorva is a member of Global Program Team of Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) and also in the board of AKRSPI (Aga Khan Rural Support program of India), ACT (Arid Communities and Technology), ASA (Association for Social Advancement), INAFI, and Parvah. He is also chairperson of Coastal Salinity Prevention Cell and Sajjata Singh. He is the founder of Working Group for Women and Land Ownership. He graduated in BE Mechanical Engineering from Gujarat University and post graduation in Rural Management from Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA). After post-graduation, he worked with Gujarat Dairy Development board for more than 2 years and than joined AKRSPI, where he worked for more than 35 years in various capacities in which he served for 20 years as the Chief Executive.
Ms Olee Bora, Member
Ms. Bora completed her Graduation from the University of Allahabad and MBA from Gauhati University. She has also done PGDM in Training & Development from the Indian Society for Training& Development (ISTD), New Delhi. Ms. Bora is currently working with North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (NEDFi), Guwahati as a General Manager since 1996. She is also a Director in NEDFi Trustee Lt. (NTL) and NEDFi Venture Capital Ltd (NVCL). She is a Nominee Director in Kanaklata Mahila Urban Co-Operative Bank and a few other NBFCs and Societies assisted by NEDFi. She has been a Resource Person to a number of NGOs and Institutes. Prior to joining NEDFi in 1996,she worked as Personnel Officer in Bongaigaon Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. (BRPL), presentlyIOCL and The Tata Energy Research Institute(TERI). She is also associated with the MBA Department of Gauhati University and Tezpur University as an External Expert. She has presented and published papers in national and international conferences.
Mr. Biren Bhuta, Member
Born and brought up in Mumbai, Mr. Bhuta graduated as a production engineer from Bharti Vidyapeeth’s College of Engineering, Pune, Biren pursued a post-graduate diploma in management (PGDM) from the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata and started his career as a Corporate Banker with Standard Chartered Bank in Chennai. Later on he switched careers to become a television journalist with NDTV in Mumbai. He consulted Tata steel for rural development in Bastar, Chhattisgarh and also worked with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Odisha on a project to mitigate impacts on Olive Ridley turtles. Post that he worked as the Chief of CSR of Tata Steel for seven years in Jharkhand and Odisha
Mr. MOHIUDDIN AHMED,
executive director
Mr. Ahmed is a Ford International Fellow and completed his Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from Columbia University, New York, USA and B.Tech (Agriculture Engineering) from NERIST, Itanagar. He worked in the development sector for more than 22 years and gained experience in promoting women-led community Institutions, natural resources management, development and management of medium-small water resources, promotion of livelihoods, and market linkages. He has the experience of working with WTCER (ICAR), KRIBP and GVT, SRIJAN, IIEC, and Livolink Foundation (Tata Trusts). He served the longest term with Self Reliant Initiative through Joint Action (SRIJAN) as a senior project executive to Chief Executive Officer. While working with SRIJAN, he worked in various government programs, such as DPIP (MP and Rajasthan), MPRLP, Tejaswini, MPOWER, IWMP, etc. He was also involved in designing a large watershed program ‘Mid Himalayan Watershed Development Project’ and other instructional and CSR donors such as TATA Trust, AIF, Ford Foundation, ABF, BRLF, ITC, etc.
