About Us

Uma Bhattacharya is an experienced entrepreneur. She has over three decades of experience in running and managing a host of businesses in multiple streams of economy. She has handled multiple businesses for decades and loves to contribute with her guidance. She plays a critical role in overall growth of Swaniti.

Rwitwika Bhattacharya is the CEO of Swaniti Initiative, a social enterprise that delivers development solutions by strengthening levers of public service delivery in South Asia. As CEO, her role focuses on developing long-term growth strategies and formulating key partnerships with governments and international agencies. Before Swaniti, Bhattacharya worked at the World Bank as an associate on labor market issues. Rwitwika is also working at the nexus of governance and development and expanding the scope of the Jaano series. Jaano India is a data platform that brings together data insights from across sectors and publicly available data sources in one space to highlight gaps that exist in public service delivery. Previously, she has worked for firms such as the United Nations Population Fund and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. She holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Wake Forest University. She has published three books, Frontiers in Development Policy (World Bank), Labor Market Primer (World Bank), and Making of a Politician (Harper Collins). Bhattacharya was selected as part of Forbes India's 30 under 30, a special invitee to the White House for her work on social enterprise, and a young global leader at the World Economic Forum, amongst other accolades.

Gaurav Bhattacharya is presently the Chief Operating Officer at Swaniti Initiative which is a social enterprise that provides development solutions to improve the delivery of public services. It leverages research, data, and experience in public service delivery to create an impact on the lives of beneficiaries. Presently he looks at various work regarding expenditure analysis of flagship schemes in GoI, research partnerships with State government, impact evaluations, etc. Prior to this, he was working at NITI Aayog, Government of India, in the Monitoring and Evaluation cell. His major skills and research interest are in the areas of impact evaluation, designing M&E frameworks, running and designing household surveys, etc. He has completed his master’s level of degree from the University of Oxford and since then has been working in the development space, primarily in the context of rural India.

As a CPO, Ankit works for organization development and strategic growth at Swaniti Intiative. In his prior assignments, he worked on grassroots community development with the tribal population in rural Gujarat as a Gandhi Fellow. His journey of making systemic interventions started at the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India through his engagement as a Governance Consultant at the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. The assignment was focused to make GPDP the core tool for the localization of SDGs in all 2.5 Lakh Gram Panchayats in India. He remains invested in various aspects of governance including local government, rural development, counter-terrorism, international relations, public administration, climate change, and administrative reforms. He studied Business Laws in Masters from NLSIU Bangalore, Business Growth Strategy from the Darden School of Business, and ESG & Climate Change from the Wharton School. He is also a mentor in Atal Innovation Mission (an Initiative of NITI Aayog, Government of India). He believes in the principle of ‘Be And Make’, given by Swami Vivekanand.

Incentivised by the significance of sustainability and renewable energy in a contemporary and succeeding environment situation and with an aspiration to contribute to the transition of the world’s economy towards a viable, resilient, and sustainable future, Chetanaya is working at Swaniti Initiative as a Vertical Lead – Energy Transition. He is an avid biker and a travel enthusiast with a decade of experience in managing projects in the Renewable Energy, Sustainability, and Telecommunication sector across different geographies. He comes from an engineering background, with a postgraduate degree in Renewable Energy from Loughborough University, UK, with a specialisation from, the University of Zaragoza, Spain.

Abhishek is a development professional from Ranchi who has worked on several government flagship projects. In his last assignment, he worked as Program Manager leading the PMU team of DMFT, Godda and worked for district administration on development planning and strategy. He holds a postgraduate degree in social work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Currently, Abhishek is heading the Policy Engagement vertical at Swaniti Initiative where his work encompasses interactions with Members of Parliament and facilitating them with the research. Abhishek’s postgraduate research focused on themes like trafficking, migration, forced labour and marginalisation. Currently, he is interested in welfare policy and planning, policy implementation and sustainable inclusive development.

Karishma is the Vertical Lead - Social Protection at Swaniti. She is presently leading the Maharashtra project on strengthening social protection for unorganised workers in the state. Karishma has a Masters in Politics and has worked in the areas of social protection, scheme entitlement delivery, and government policy research and support. Her core expertise is in rural development, empowerment of women and marginalised communities, and labour rights. She has worked with organisations such as Village Social Transformation Foundation and Haqdarshak in the past.

Undergrad from IIT Bombay, Working to build the products which can be useful in understanding the last mile delivery of Government Schemes, Hobbies are listening to music and swimming