Board of Directors

Chairman

Vijay Mahajan, was educated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; and at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, USA. Vijay is the chairman of the BASIX group and co-founded PRADAN, Sa-dhan and APMAS. He has co-authored a book "The Forgotten Sector" on the rural non-farm sector and written over 50 articles on rural livelihoods, development and micro-finance. He is a member of the Committee on Financial Inclusion, the Microfinance Equity and Development Fund and is also on the Board of CGAP, the global microfinance apex. Vijay was selected "Outstanding Social Entrepreneur" by the Schwab Foundation of the World Economic Forum, Davos, 2003.

CEO

Ashok Singha is a graduate in Agriculture and a postgraduate in Management, has over 15 years experience in Livelihood Enhancement, Micro-Finance, Sector Transformation, Public Enterprise Reform, Policy Research, Governance and Performance Improvement areas. He has exposure to sector study, institutional analysis and capacity building at national and international levels. He is one of the six governance consultants with DFID in India. An alumnus of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar , Ashok has worked in Power Sector Reform (Orissa, AP, MP, UP), Public Enterprise Reform (in power sector, forestry sector, irrigation and water sectors), Decentralization and Participatory Governance (with Pani Panchayats, Water user Associations, Power User Associations, capacity building of NGOs, CBOs and municipalities). Ashok has worked extensively on climate change issues. His works include configuring large scale demand side management and energy efficiency projects in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. He worked with EII in the marketing of a portfolio of CDM projects in India for DFAI–Canada. Ashok has worked extensively in the CDM project cycle in different capacities and has written extensively on the issues relating to power sector reform and climate change. He is familiar with regulatory, commercial and institutional issues in power sector and has actively participated in various consultations during the preparation Indian Electricity Act. His recent interests include working with large power companies on the issues relating to better climate management and regulatory compliance, risk management areas. He is also engaged with several public and private sector companies for CDM configuration. He has successfully led a team of seven professionals in Institutional Strengthening Project in Orissa Power Sector Reform during privatization engagement of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Ashok is also co-author of a book titled The Forgotten Sector, with Thomas Fisher of New Economic Foundation and Mr. Vijay Mahajan, BASIX. Ashok has also contributed to the book Rural Electricity Governance (Academic Foundation).

Director

Prabhat Panda is a Chartered Accountant and co-founder of CTRAN. He has worked extensively in the areas of project appraisal, due diligence, project finance and transaction. He has been involved with several institutional and financial risk assessments for many reputed agencies such as Action AID, UNDP, DFID.

Director

Mr. N V Ramana, is a post graduate in Business Management with specialization in Agriculture from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad and a graduate in Dairy Technology from National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. Most recently, served as Chief Executive Officer, BASIX group of companies. He joined BASIX as Sr. Vice President (Strategic Initiatives), provided guidance to new initiatives in livelihoods and on commercial ventures in various sub-sectors in BASIX group. He anchored Business Development for the Group Companies. He served as Managing Director of Krishna Bhima Samruddhi Local Area Bank (KBSLAB).Prior to BASIX, he was associated with ITC group for over two decades at various levels of management in the areas of procurement, commodity trading, processing, marketing and exports of agricultural commodities. He has vast experience in developing & implementing Agro business and projects.

Director

S. Ramachandran: a bachelor of Commerce and a Chartered Accountant started his career in a manufacturing industry, in the finance and MIS/IT function. He then worked with two major NBFCs in charge of accounting, audit and compliance. He joined BASIX in 1999 as Senior Manager, in charge of Finance and Information function. He set up the Information Technology Solutions for Livelihoods group catering to both the internal IT needs of BASIX as well as of many upcoming NGOs-MFIs. He became AVP (Operations and HR) in 2004. In 2006, he became Chief Operating Officer of BSFL. In 2008 he became Chief Financial and Technology Officer. He attended the course for Financial Institutions for Private Enterprise Development conducted by Harvard University in 2006.