Andy Kalambi has over 30 years of executive leadership experience at some of the largest technology corporations and startups, including Siemens, SAP and Dassault Systems. He is a mechanical engineer by training, having studied at Delhi University. He leveraged that expertise to spearhead sustainability initiatives across Asia, organizing conferences, campaigns and sustainability toolkits in Singapore, Japan, US and India. Currently, Andy is the Managing Partner at Kanu Ventures LLC in Boston, where he is focused on mentoring companies in deep tech and cleantech. He is also a partner at Hi Mark Capital, a venture capital firm that prioritizes investing in BIPOC and women founders, and a board member of the CHF Foundation, USA. He strongly believes that biodiversity is the meta-narrative that underpins our shared future.
Kamal Bawa is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Co-founder of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) and President, ATREE USA. Among the many awards he has received are: Pew Award in Conservation and the Environment (1992), Giorgio Ruffolo Fellowship at Harvard University (2009), the Gunnerus Prize in Sustainability Science from the Royal Norwegian Society of Letters and Sciences (2012), the international MIDORI Prize in Biodiversity (2014) from the Aeon Foundation in Japan, the Linnean Medal (2018), and honorary doctorates from the University of Alberta (2014) and Concordia University in Montreal (2019).
He is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2012), the Royal Norwegian Society of Letters and Sciences (2012), the Royal Society (2015), and the American Philosophical Society. Kamal Bawa is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Conservation and Society and Editor of Ecology, Economy and Society. His latest coffee table book Himalaya: The Mountains of Life, a companion volume to Sahyadri: India’s Western Ghats, was published in 2013.
Chitra Dwarka is an innovator, consultant and accomplished leader with expertise in technology management and product development with extensive experience in strategic planning, building collaborative high-performing teams and successfully executing multiple complex technology, entrepreneurial and social impact global initiatives. She currently combines nature-inspired innovation, technology and interdisciplinary collaboration to drive collective intelligence design, organizational and system level transformation, and sustainable product design. Chitra leads partnerships at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium and has held senior roles as VP Product Development and Global Product Management at State Street Corporation. As a board member of ATREE USA, she champions environmental stewardship and regenerative practices. Chitra is lifelong learner with interest in global cultures, history, and philosophies. She holds an MBA from Simmons College, MSc in Biomimicry from ASU, and is aCertified Biomimicry Professional.
AGK Karunakaran is a technology entrepreneur and President and CEO of MulticoreWare Inc., a global company providing software products, AI-enabled engineering services and solutions for mobility, media, video compression, imaging and smart systems. He is also General Partner at 3ipartners, a venture fund for India’s deep-tech entrepreneurs.
Over more than three decades he has led innovation-driven organizations across hardware and software, including leadership roles at GDA Technologies, Trident Microsystems, Opti, HCL and Wipro. He serves on the board of Pratham USA’s Seattle chapter and was President of TiE Silicon Valley from 2021 to 2022. He has also supported social impact efforts in India focused on education, sustainability and community resilience. He joined the ATREE USA Board of Directors in 2026.
Raj is a Venture Partner at SUM Ventures, a firm that invests in visionary founders at the earliest stages, focusing on ideas that aim to create a better future for all. SUM Ventures’ investments primarily target sectors such as FinTech, PropTech, IoT, AI, MedTech, CleanTech, and other impactful ventures. As a Venture Partner, Raj collaborates with select portfolio companies, providing operational support while also identifying and evaluating potential new partners.
Raj retired as Senior Vice President of Portfolio Management at Siemens Software, where he oversaw Mergers, Acquisitions, and Equity Investment planning, focusing on strategic software portfolio initiatives with measurable business impact. With over 43 years of experience, Raj also held various senior management positions, serving as a Business Lead in Product Lifecycle Management, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing Engineering.
Raj was honored as the “Siemens Inventor of the Year” in 2022. He has also received multiple recognitions for innovation in the domain of Supply Chain integration and is credited with several innovations in the integration of hydraulics and electronics.
Raj is a Mechanical Engineer with a graduate degree in Computer Science. For over a decade, Raj has been actively engaged with graduate business programs at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper/Heinz Schools, the Booth School at the University of Chicago, and the Paul Merage School at the University of California, Irvine. He currently serves on the ATREE Advisory Board.
Anthony Killough is a successful business and social entrepreneur with a deep interest in India.
Dr. Umesh Maheshwari is a computer technologist and entrepreneur. He was the founding CTO of Nimble Storage, a pioneer in flash-based data storage systems. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from MIT and a BTech from IIT Delhi, where he received the President of India Gold Medal for the highest grades in his graduating class.
He founded the Fruitful India Fund in 2017 and is a driving force behind ATREE’s FRESH initiative (Fruit Resources for Ecological Sustainability and Human Health). FRESH works with smallholder and forest-fringe communities from the Himalayas to the Western Ghats to improve nutrition, build fruit-based livelihoods and restore degraded land. He joined the ATREE USA Board of Directors in 2026.
Ravi Achar’s present focus is as a Board member investor in several Pharma, Biotech and MedTech companies based in the US and India. In addition, he is actively involved with founders and startups providing Board advisory services.
Ravi holds an MBA in International Business & Finance from Pace University in New York and a BE from RV College of Engineering in Bangalore, India. He has a diverse C level 34+ years background in the Defense and Healthcare industries in operations, business development, strategic partnerships, international business, and funding having conducted business in over 60 countries in Europe, Asia, South America, the Middle East, and Africa.
Ravi devotes his time between Los Angeles and Bangalore for family and business endeavors. He is an 8th generation Achar from Talacauvery, Coorg, India. Ravi and his wife Radhika are passionate about nature, conservation, and sustainability taking care of the family farm, Cauvery, in the village of Tharalu outside of Bangalore.
Radhika is Co-President of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs. She is an angel and impact tech investor, passionate about civic engagement, community building and transformative social change. She is an advisor to the Sustainable Development Goals Philanthropy Platform, Founding Chair of its Tech Advisory Group, and a Fellow at the Stanford Handa Center. She sits on the International Advisory Network of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) and is a founding member of its Tech Advisory Board.
She has been an advisor, mentor and judge at the StartX (Stanford) and SkyDeck (Berkeley) accelerators, Impact Experience, and Illumen Capital, a fund of impact funds working to reduce implicit bias. She was also a founding volunteer of the Silicon Valley mentoring group RajeevCircle.org. She recently joined the board of the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at UC Berkeley. CEGA brings mission-driven academics from leading West Coast universities together with governments and NGOs around the world on evidence-based research and action to reduce poverty.
Growing up under the influence of Gandhian philosophy in India, she cares about women’s empowerment, education, social justice and the environment, and is deeply committed to building bridges that advance the SDGs. Radhika co-founded the former Ashoka Silicon Valley chapter and is on the Action for India SV Leadership Council. She also advises the nonprofits Healing Fields, CGNetSwara.org and Samasource.org, all led by social entrepreneurs.
She has spoken at or co-convened events at Stanford, Berkeley, the National Academy of Sciences, the United Nations and the UN Solutions Summit. She is also part of the Technology for Development study group at the Center for Global Development. Radhika holds a master’s in Computer Science from Stanford University and an MBA from UC Berkeley. She serves on ATREE USA’s Advisory Council.
Rajini Srikanth received her PhD in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is Professor of English and Dean of Faculty at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Srikanth is the author of two monographs (one focused on South Asian American literature and the other on U.S. Literature and Law), several co-edited volumes, and multiple articles in journals. Her research and teaching are interdisciplinary.
Dr. Srikanth works in the areas of human rights and literature, global public health, humanities and coastal resiliency, climate justice, and comparative race and ethnic studies. She is passionate about cultivating the next generation of ethical climate scientists, policy makers and educators, and is fiercely committed to furthering planetary health through her teaching and research.
Dimpsy Teckchandani is a Partner at PwC with 25 years of corporate and consulting experience helping organizations digitize their operations, with data, analytics and AI as the foundation. She has worked across retail, consumer goods, financial services, hospitality and technology, and is based in Los Angeles. She serves on ATREE USA’s Advisory Council.
Zoë Timms is the Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Education Project (WEP), which she formed in 2002 while living in India. WEP’s mission is for young women to become earners, leaders, and changemakers. Working with area grassroots leaders, Zoë developed the Leadership Academy, a locally sourced, holistic curricula through which young women become knowledgeable and confident leaders prepared to pursue their ambitions with an expanded awareness of life’s opportunities.
Balakrishnan (‘Bala’) Venkatachalam was, until recently, Executive Director of Pratham USA. Under his watch, with support from the Board, Pratham USA raised over $150 million in eight years, saw a 2.5X jump in annual revenues from $10.5 to $25 million, expanded the team from 6 to 25, and enhanced processes and technology capabilities. Bala was involved with Pratham’s programs in India between 2003 and 2006 as national head of operations, and has previously worked across audit, strategy consulting, and a mobile technology start-up as co-founder.
Before his role at Pratham USA, Bala worked with the strategy consulting firm Monitor Group in India as Engagement Manager where he led a team to identify and develop new business opportunities in affordable urban housing.
Bala is currently engaged in seeding Pratham’s work internationally. He is passionate about education, healthcare, environmental, and long-term sustainability issues. He has an MBA from INSEAD and is a Chartered Accountant (CPA equivalent).
An experienced leader in environmental and educational initiatives, Jonathan brings a unique blend of professional expertise, academic insight, and deep personal ties to ecological change in India.
Born in Delhi and raised in Uttarakhand, Jonathan has dedicated his career to advancing ambitious environmental and educational efforts. Before leading strategic communications campaigns at the Environmental Defense Fund and National Wildlife Federation, he completed a PhD in Environmental History, working with communities in Rajasthan on long-term water infrastructure impacts. His leadership experience extends to academic institutional management — Jonathan has also led an international high school in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, supporting a significant period of renovation and fundraising. As ecological pressures in India intensify, the need for action has never been greater. ATREE USA is driving significant new support for transformative efforts like The Himalayan Initiative, and with Jonathan’s leadership, we are further mobilizing US-based giving to sustain and expand ATREE’s vital mission.
Beth Kaplin is Senior Advisor, Global Partnerships at ATREE USA, bringing two decades of experience in conservation science and international capacity-building. An ecologist, her work spans biodiversity, plant-animal interactions and conservation, with a particular focus on seed dispersal and forest regeneration in tropical mountain forests. Her interests include primates as seed dispersers, the management of protected areas and the lands around them, and interactions between people and wildlife.
From 2006 to 2015, supported by nearly $1 million in MacArthur Foundation grants, she lived in Rwanda as a Technical Advisor. There she developed biodiversity and conservation science programs at the National University of Rwanda (now the University of Rwanda), including an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation and Natural Resources Management. She also founded the Regional Network for Conservation Educators in the Albertine Rift, which supports conservation scientists in Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Tanzania and Uganda. Beth is a Research Professor in the School for the Environment at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and she served as President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation in 2022.
Preena Soni is Development Advisor at ATREE USA, where she helps build the relationships and support that sustain ATREE’s work. She is a philanthropy and nonprofit strategy professional who specializes in strategic fundraising, grant writing and impact advisory, and she runs her own consultancy, Social Good Advisory. She also serves as Executive Director of Akhand Jyoti USA.
She previously led community and partnerships work at the RoundGlass Foundation and was a foundation development officer at RMI. Preena holds the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP) credential from The American College of Financial Services.
Reinmar Seidler is Director of Programs at ATREE USA. He is a Research Assistant Professor of Environmental Biology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he teaches evolutionary biology, conservation biology and sustainability science.
His work focuses on environmental management, especially in South Asia. He edited and contributed to P. S. Ashton’s On the Forests of Tropical Asia (2015) and has collaborated with ATREE founder Kamal Bawa on climate change in the Himalayas.
Kris Cafaro has a BA (Interdisciplinary) from Muhlenberg College, an MA (Environmental Policy & Planning) from Tufts University, and a Graduate Certificate (Mediation & Conflict Resolution) from Colorado State University. She is an editor, writer, and researcher and has worked with environmental non-profit organizations and grantmaking foundations including Legacy Land Trust and Audubon Colorado. She currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for Animal Friends Alliance, an animal welfare non-profit located in Northern Colorado.
