MANAGEMENT TEAM

RAHUL AKHURY

CHAIRMAN

RAHUL AKHAURY, CHAIRMAN, has an Engineering Degree from IIT-BHU as well as an MBA from IIM Bangalore. He has over 29 years of extensive educational and managerial experience.

He founded Ed2Net Learning, Inc. in 2007, which caters to supplemental education services and intervention programmes to students in K-12 schools in the USA. Ed2Net is Dallas, Texas, headquartered.

He is the Co-founder of "Vidya & Child", an NGO working for education of underprivileged children. Started in 1998, this initiative has over 1,800 children in K-12 grades. Vidya & Child has taken over three municipal schools in East Delhi and in U.P.

SANDIP KUMAR DAS

FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR

I, Sandip Kumar Das, am an entrepreneur and founder of Vernajyoti Educare (https://vernajyoti.com/). Vernajyoti Educare is a not for profit company and has adopted a holistic cluster development approach in Farmer Producers' Organizations (FPO) in Himalayan region and slum clusters within Eastern Indian region via its various programs which can lead to long term socio- economic changes in the identified clusters through customized interventions.I am a Commerce Graduate from Calcutta University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Tea Management from National Institute of Tea Management.I have 15 years of experience in Training & Recruitment in IT, RETAIL, HOSPITALITY & Marketing.

I have so far generated employment for more than 1,500 unemployed youth of West Bengal, Jharkhand & Uttar Pradesh through my venture.I founded Vernajyoti in 2012 aiming to endeavor continuous innovation for sustainable livelihood options in the rural and under-developed cluster. In FPO engagement model, Vernajyoti has adopted a holistic cluster development approach and its various programs have made significant impact in different areas of the country by producing further value-add by simple processing and upscaling which results in higher income for member farmers.

RANJESH PRASAD

CHIEF STRATEGIC ADVISOR

RANJESH PRASAD, SENIOR TECHNICAL ADVISOR. Ranjesh is a Rural Marketing, Public Development & Market Research professional with more than three decades of varied and diversified experience in the Rural Sector. He has also advised the Skill India Mission in his capacity as Advisor to NSDC till recently.Further, he has been associated with many national level projects in sectors like skilling, dairy and horticulture, among others.

He is the early batch MBA pass out from the prestigious Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), a leading sectoral Institute catering to the development and rural sectors. Ranjesh was heading the South Asia operation of Public Development and Enterprise of global marketing and Insight conglomerate, The Nielsen Company as its Director for South Asia. Ranjesh has advised and executed many grassroots projects benefiting the poor and the marginalized with NDDB, Yes Bank, Aditya Birla, McGill University and National Mission on Horticulture (NHM), among many others.

SABNAM JANA

HOSPITALITY EDUCATOR

A seasoned professional in the field of Hospitality Operations & Training,

She has 30+ years of varied experience in the Hotel Industry. She started her career from the renowned 5 star deluxe hotel Fariyas Holiday Resort, Lonavala after completing her studies in Hotel Management, from the prestigious Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition, Taratala, Kolkata. She has trained in hotels like The Oberoi Grand and Leela Penta and worked in ITC Maurya Sheraton Delhi, The Park, The Windamere and Mayfair Darjeeling and the The Ambuja Neotia Group. She has donned the hat of the Executive Housekeeper to House Manager and Learning & Development Manager in the industry. However, her passion for teaching has driven her repeatedly to some esteemed Hotel Management Institutes where she rose from the position of Faculty to the Director. She gave up her Corporate role to devote more time to education and development of the backward community through Sustainable Tourism.

NIVEDITA GUPTA

EDUCATIONIST

Nivedita Gupta is in accademic for last 35 years.

A student of English literature, she has done her graduation and post graduation from CU & JU respectively. She has completed her B. Ed under JU and started her teaching career as a lecturer in The British Institute Kolkata, teaching ELTS & BBC curriculum. Later she became the Centre Head of Bokaro & Dhanbad units and finally she became one of the Directors of BI in Siliguri.

She has remained the Principal of three reputed schools in Haryana, Siliguri & Kolkata. She has taught Business Communication and French in IIAS and later Techno India's branches in Siliguri and Guptipara for long twelve years. She has taught French & Business English in North Bengal University also. The department of French in NBU was an initiative by her. A thorough professional and an able Educator, she has specialised in Psychology and Customer Relationship Management and has remained an Assistant Professor with Team Future, kolkata. The Training division of her colleges have been headed by her and P. Dev, Grooming & Etiquette, Soft skills and Hard Skills have remained her forté. She also has remained a resource person in Entrepreneurship & Cross-Cultural communication. For a period of 8 months she had remained the GRE at Peerless Inn and Instructor of English and hospitality trainer of Frankfinn, Siliguri for one year.

She has retired on 1st of February this year and is working as a full time resource person.

Hobbies: Reading, travelling, photography

Tseibu Rutsa

State Head – Nagaland

Tseibu Rutsa,M.Th, D.Ed, Ph.D Indiana (USA) Family Counseling)Dr. Rutsa has been over 30 plus years in management and is experienced in educational institutions .He has remained the President, Leaders For Christ International in USA,His main task was to connect leaders from the developing nations to introduce them to the resources of America so as to help the poor and destitute people and communities in their nations.

He was in-charge of raising funds for leadership conferences and seminars in America. This leadership conference takes place twice a year since 2006.He was the main key person to invite the American Speakers from various background during the Leadership conference in America. Dr. Rutsa was the Founder Principal of the, "The College of Arts and Technology" (Formerly known as Mountain View Christian College) from 1990 to 2005. This college is affiliated to Nagaland Central University)Dr. Rutsa has also remained the Emeritus Principal to the college of Arts and Technology.

Presently he has been traveling and delivering extensive Lectures in Churches, Colleges, University, Ngos, Political gathering and communities. He quotes himself to be, " the Voice of the Nagas in Wilderness".In the recent past, he has been invited to join Vernajyoti as a member for which he is grateful to the Chairman/Director. He believes that Vernajyoti will make its presence felt in NAGALAND by connecting with the people there to help this state go forward with the rest of the country in every aspect of the State's progressiveness, especially in Rural Tourism.

SUKHARANJAN MAHATA

IT -Technologist

Sukharanjan Mahata is a new generation entrepreneur having vast experience in Digital Technologies. In his entire career of 20 years he worked for some of worlds largest companies like Citibank NA, Honda Motors US, National Grid Plc. UK, Tata Steel Europe and Tata Consultancy Services. He has vast experience in building and maintaining large and complex multi tire business applications for global companies comprise of high-end technologies. He has worked as a specialist in defining and measuring quality standards for software development and maintenance. He is having good knowledge on Agriculture value chain, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, NBFC, Micro-Finance and e-commerce.

Lakpa Tshering Bhutia

Territory Head - Darjeeling and Sikkim

During my service career of 37 years under C&SSI department ( now MSME)as IDO at Block and last 10 years as Manager and GMin Charge at DIC Darjeeling, I had great opportunities to implement the various government schemes .

Thausand of entrepreneurs and many village level artisans and womens artisans / entrepreneurs were benefitted through organizing of Trainings ,Block and urban areas Awareness/ motivational camps on setting up Micro and small scale enterprises through credit linked schemes , government incentive and other benefits like self employment schemes ,Later year the DIC has become a very important organization and a facilitating centre for entrepreneurs in relates to MSME development in urban and rural areas . MSME means manufacturing and service sector development in order to create more employment opportunity in the nation .For the last 10 years government gave thrust on cluster development and creating more Industrial cooperative units Under Rural Entrepreneurs HuB ( REH) and emphasis given to women run Ready made garment manufacturing units. in my tenure 12 clusters and Nearly 14 REH industrial Cooperative societies are formed they are provided improvised and imported Machinery equipments.Units are immediately engaged in manufacturing process after necessary trainings and engaged in school uniform making etc .Under Handicraft dev. Scheme many artisans are benefits thru yearly district level competition and state level competition . monthly Pension awarded to old aged Artisans . Entrepreneurs are given opportunity to visit and participate in various level seminars and industrial meet for boosting their thinking and working capacity .As I enjoyed full of my service life in this department as I hailed from rural areas and such a family where my father was a pure selfless social workers who have established schools in villages and library so his sincerity on work always inspired me and luckily my entry Happened in such a department where I found many oppertunity to help the needy and prospective artisans , Entrepreneurs .

Nandini Bhattacharjee

Textile designer

Nandini is a qualified Textile & Fashion designer from Visva Bharati University ,Shantiniketan with a fanatical approach.

She has 9 years + of experience creating powerful designs in the fashion industry, providing training to various private Institution & Industrial Sector. Adept in collaborating with designers and other team professional to achieve high goals and deadlines .Dedicated to remaining up to date with the latest fashion trends ,While offering ideas and visuals to spark new trends . Bringing forth a true love of fashion and design.

Being a Women Nandini is committed to empowering the Women of the Rural Areas by delivering them, training on Cutting, Stitching , Designing ,Dyeing & Shibori Dying. She has enabled more than 50 Women employable in Nadia District of West Bengal.

The management is supported by sectoral experts such as labour & migration , sustainability domain experts and others.. Further the operational team consist at one end of field force working and building capacity at the ground level with community based organizations and at the other end a marketing set up which is instrumental in forging the requisite market linkages.