Board of Trustees

ramesh

Ramesh Ramanathan

Co-founder, Jana GROUP

Ramesh Ramanathan is a social entrepreneur, and works on urban issues in India. He is the co-founder of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, a non-profit focused on transforming quality of life in Urban India. He is also Chairman of Janalakshmi Social Services, a not-for-profit social business holding company that has promoted enterprises in urban financial inclusion and urban affordable housing.

Ramesh works closely with government on urban issues in a pro-bono capacity. He has also contributed as the National Technical Advisor, Government of India for the Jawarharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the country’s flagship urban mission.

Prior to his social initiatives, Ramesh held leadership positions with Citibank in New York and London, in the bank’s capital markets business. Ramesh has an MS in Physics from BITS Pilani, an MBA from Yale University and a CFA from AIMR. In 2007, he was chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

swati

Swati Ramanathan

Co-founder, Jana GROUP

Swati Ramanathan is co-founder of Jana Group, a clutch of social enterprises aimed at urban transformation in India. These include:

Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy committed to transforming India’s cities and citizenship. Janaagraha takes a systems approach to addressing urban challenges, working both with citizens at the grassroots, as well as with all three federal tiers of government. Ms Ramanathan leads Janaagraha’s innovations in the use of social media and mobile and internet technology for civic participation. She has received international awards and recognition for ipaidabribe.org on retail corruption in 25 countries; and for ichangemycity.org on hyper local citizen participation, including Google’s Global Impact Challenge, 2013, ICIF Australia 2015, Manthan Award in 2015

Jana Urban Space Foundation, of which she is Chairperson, is committed to improving urban planning and urban design in India, and is engaged in both planning and design practice and policy reforms.

Over the past 15 years, India’s urban reforms and policies on a variety of fronts have been substantially shaped by the work of the Jana Group.

Ms Ramanathan has prepared the “National Urban Spatial Planning and Development (USPD), 2013 Guidelines” for planning India’s cities, at the behest of the Ministry of Urban Development, and the Planning Commission, Government of India. Ms Ramanathan was the Co-Convenor of the Urban Planning Group of the Planning Commission’s 12th Five Year Plan. She is currently member of the Chief Minister’s Advisory Council, Government of Rajasthan. She is undertaking the development of a Spatial Development Plan 2035 for Sawai Madhopur, and transformational projects for the city that are related to Mobility and Conservation of the city’s water system and Protection of the Forest and Tiger Sanctuary.

Ms Ramanathan’s work on Urban Design standards for city roads have been adopted as the desired standards by the state of Karnataka (Tender SURE – Specifications for Urban Road Execution), with the Government of Karnataka allocating Rs.500 crores over 2012-14 in the state budget, towards model Tender SURE roads for the CBD area of Bangalore city. The Tender Sure Project is a visible success in the city, and the Chief Minister has announced 50 more roads will be included in the 2016-17 budget.

In 2007, Ms Ramanathan was named a Young Asian Leader by the Asia Society. In 2008, Ms Ramanathan was honored by the Government of Rajasthan with the Rajyotsava Puraskar for her work on the Jaipur 2025 Master plan. In 2013, Ms Ramanathan was honoured by the National Democratic Institute in Washinton DC, with the Democracy and Civic Innovator Award. In 2013, she and her husband were honored with as the Social Entrepreneurs of the Year Award by Forbes India. Ms Ramanathan holds a BS from India, and an MS from Pratt Institute, N.Y.

nayar

K K Nayar

Trustee – Janaagraha

With over three decades experience in projects and manufacturing management in FMCG, Food, Paper and Chemicals, Mr Nayar has wide spectrum experience in new and green field units’ up-gradation, expansion, building and commissioning. He was formerly the Executive Director at Unilever Subsidiaries in India, UK and Egypt where he focused on Technology, Profit Improvement programmes, Acquisitions and Mergers. Mr Nayar has been associated with Janaagraha since 2004. He has been heading the Janaagraha Working Council and has recently become one of the Trustees.