Directors
Manoj Kumar
Founding CEO & Social Entrepreneur | India | Regenerative Agriculture | Food Systems Innovation | Development Finance
A visionary leader and social entrepreneur, Manoj is the founding CEO of Naandi Foundation, one of India’s largest multi-sectoral non-profit organizations. Over 27 years, Naandi has impacted the lives of over 10 million people across 75,000 villages through long-term programs focused on human capital development and regenerative agriculture.
A Robert McNamara Fellow of the World Bank, Manoj started his career with Government of India under the Ministry of Finance with stints in insurance, intelligence and development banking before switching to rural microfinance, and international humanitarian aid focused on the rural farm sector.
At Naandi, he designed and pioneered innovative solutions that enhanced efficiency and quality of large-scale government services, including creating the world’s largest network of centralized kitchens that provided meals to 1.3 million students under the government’s mid-day meal scheme.
Manoj is best known for transforming Araku Valley in the Eastern Ghats—a region ravaged by poverty, Naxal insurgency, and ecological degradation—into a thriving biodiverse region with 50 million planted trees and an iconic global coffee brand, ARAKU Coffee. This transformation enabled approximately 100,000 tribal families to escape poverty through regenerative agriculture practices.
Recognizing the need for systemic change, Manoj spun off multiple social enterprises including ARAKU (a globally acclaimed coffee brand), Archipel India (working with smallholder farmers across India), Urban Farms Co. (a Net Zero Food System), and Naandi Water (India’s largest community-based safe drinking water company). These ventures exemplify his innovative hybrid financing models that blend social impact with commercial sustainability.
In 2020, Naandi’s ‘Arakunomics’ regenerative agriculture model won the prestigious Food Vision Prize 2050 from the Rockefeller Foundation. Manoj is a Fellow and Faculty at the Aspen Institute, Colorado, serves on boards of various social impact organizations, and is CSR Advisor to the Mahindra Group. In 2012, the Financial Times listed him as one of 25 Indians to watch.
Dele Olojede
Award-Winning Journalist & Public Intellectual | Stellenbosch, South Africa / New York City | Global Affairs | African Development | Humanitarian Leadership
Dele is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and global thought leader with more than four decades of experience as a writer, publisher, and editor. Renowned for groundbreaking reporting on global events, including the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, Dele evolved into a prominent public intellectual committed to advancing critical discourse on political economy, history, and culture across Africa and around the world.
As a correspondent, he has reported from over 75 countries across the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and North America, primarily for New York Newsday, with extended postings in major global centres including New York, Johannesburg, and Beijing. He also founded and published an investigative newspaper, NEXT, in Lagos, demonstrating deep commitment to high-quality journalism in Africa.
Dele is founder and host of Africa in the World, an annual ideas festival in Stellenbosch, outside Cape Town, that convenes global leaders, thinkers, and innovators around African development challenges and opportunities. He serves as moderator of Aspen Institute leadership seminars for the Aspen Global Leadership Network, of which he is a fellow, and sits on various boards including EARTH University in Costa Rica and the Aurora Prize selection committee, which awards $1 million annually to individuals and organizations advancing exceptional humanitarian work worldwide.
David Menasce
Founder & CEO of Archipel&Co | Paris, France | Social Impact Consulting | Specialist on Sustainable Businesses and Emerging Markets | Supporting Smallholding Farmers & Micro-Enterprises
David Menasce is the Founder and CEO of Archipel&Co, a boutique consulting firm operating at the intersection of social impact and commercial business strategy with offices in Paris, Marseille, London, Mumbai, and Dakar.
Leading a diverse talent pool, David has become the go-to-person in France for results-driven social innovation and impact with his 20+ years of experience designing and implementing sustainable business models for emerging markets. He has also set up an independent research institute focused specifically on Bottom of the Pyramid market accessibility strategies. This firm has an enviable track record for translating complex development challenges into scalable, commercially viable solutions for global enterprises, Fortune 500 companies, and even philanthropic organizations seeking to deliver economic, strategic, and social value through just transition initiatives.
Over his career, David has advised businesses and social entrepreneurs on social innovation initiatives, designed impact measurement systems for development organizations, and fostered innovation opportunities across sectors. He served as Academic Director of the Executive MBA in Innovative Business Models in Emerging Countries at HEC Paris, co-hosted with the University of Cape Town and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, and continues as faculty at HEC Paris teaching sustainable development and corporate responsibility.
David has been the Editor of Revue Française de Gestion and Founder of the Sustainable Development Collection for ISTE, a European publishing company, where he publishes thought leadership on sustainable development and corporate responsibility. His expertise spans impact measurement frameworks, social innovation and business model design, stakeholder engagement, just transition strategies, and cross-sector collaboration, with particular focus on micro enterprises, smallholding farmers, and street vendors as engines of sustainable economic growth.
David holds a master’s degree from HEC Paris and a degree from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).
An Indophile, avid reader, a connoisseur of music, David lives in Paris.
Leadership Team
Anupama Sreeramaneni
President – Operations
With a solid work experience spanning over 7 years in the areas of IT & business in the US, Anupama Sreeramaneni joined Naandi’s Livelihoods division as a Volunteer in 2009. Combining her diverse work experience with a degree in Engineering & Management, she was able to effectively rise to the role of a core member in Naandi’s Senior Management team.
Anupama heads the Production, Ops, Certifications and Audits for Naandi’s coffee project, and was part of the core team which led Araku Coffee’s successful retail launch in Paris & India. Having spent around 10 years in Naandi, Anupama, fondly referred to as Anu by her colleagues, has been instrumental in exploring popular B2B markets across South Asia & Europe for Araku Coffee. Anu also heads the Ops team for the agroforestry venture under Naandi Livelihoods.
The care-taker of 40,000 farmer families that work with Naandi in the Araku region, Anu is a multi-tasker par excellence. In her spare time, she enjoys playing badminton, travelling, and socialising.
Rohini Mukherjee
Partnerships
A Masters of Social Work from Delhi University, Rohini Mukherjee has been active in a range of critical roles within Naandi Foundation over the last 17 years. Currently, she leads the Policy and Strategy Cell and in her role as Naandi’s Chief Policy Officer has overseen the successful completion of two large-scale surveys; The HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) Survey & the 2018 TAG (Teen Age Girls) Survey.
In her previous roles, she led a large RCT (randomized control trial) to test solutions to neonatal mortality – carried out in 460 villages of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, in partnership with London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She was also at the helm of the World Bank-funded action research ‘Bachpan Project’ in backward blocks of Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, to establish most efficient ways of extending government services for child development to families living below the poverty line.
Before joining Naandi, Rohini worked in rural West Bengal for over 14 years, as a founding member of a grassroots community group. A state level swimmer, Rohini has base level training in classical music and mountaineering.
Advisory Team
David Hogg
Chief Agroecology Advisor (pro bono)
Jaspal Singh
Organic Regenerative Agriculture
Vivek Broome
Nursery Science
Circles
