Vanessa D'Souza

Chief Executive Officer

Vanessa D’Souza has served as CEO of SNEHA since March 2013, following a volunteering stint with the organisation. Prior to that, she worked with Citibank India in various positions, her last role being: Director, Citigroup Private Bank. During her tenure with Citibank she worked across various divisions including Non-Resident Indian Business, Corporate Bank, Project Re-engineering and eventually with the Private Bank. She won the coveted Citicorp Chairman’s Service Excellence Award in 1989 for exemplary performance. She holds a Bachelors (Honours) degree in Economics and a postgraduate degree in Management with a specialization in Marketing. Vanessa pursued the Management Executive Development Programme at Stanford University, USA, sponsored by Citibank. She also holds a postgraduate Diploma in Public Health Nutrition. She was a Dasra Social Impact Fellow in 2015 and attended their Leadership Programme for non-profit executives. Vanessa has been a recipient of the Mother Teresa Social Leadership Scholarship, to attend the Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management Programme at Harvard Business School in 2017.

Dr. Shanti Pantvaidya

Executive Director

Dr. Shanti Pantvaidya, Executive Director, was a medical teacher for 35 years and Professor/Head of Anesthesiology Services for 20 years at the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College & General Hospital (LTMMC & LTMGH). At LTMGH, she played a pivotal role in establishing many speciality anaesthesiology and post operative intensive care services for renal transplant procedures , cardiac, neuro surgeries, and pain relief services. She was instrumental in setting up the Emergency Medical Services of LTMG Hospital. In SNEHA, Dr. Shanti led the initiative of establishing a formal maternal and newborn referral systems linking public hospitals of Mumbai and its adjacent six municipal corporations in partnership with the health services of the respective corporations and supported by the ICICI Centre for Child Health and Nutrition, PATH India and DFID. She was also the Lead Researcher in the WHO-funded Implementation Research Programme, which documented the maternal referral system. Dr. Shanti currently oversees research and the programme implementation across SNEHA.

Dr. Padmaja Keskar

Senior Consultant
Systems and Medical

Dr. Padmaja S. Keskar has acquired the degree of M.B.B.S. from “Topiwala National Medical College” Mumbai and has a Diploma in Public Health (D.P.H.) from Mumbai University. Dr. Keskar has worked for more than 30 years with Public Health Department of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai in various managerial capacities & fields. She is experienced and trained in implementation of major Public Health Programmes (Immunisation, malaria, vector control, HIV/AIDS, Administration, TB etc.) in capacities of senior level manager. She has also worked in WHO National Polio Surveillance Project for 2 years in Western Maharashtra. She has initiated Acute Flaccid Paralysis Surveillance in Western Maharashtra. She was holding the post of Executive Health Officer of MCGM and Project Director, Mumbai Districts AIDS Control Society since the year 2014 till she was superannuated w.e.f. 1.7.2020. She has implemented many initiatives in Public Health Department during her tenure.

Dr. Nayreen Daruwalla

Programme Director

Prevention of Violence against Women and Children (Research, Partnership and Scaling)

Dr. Nayreen Daruwalla heads the component of research, partnership and scaling of SNEHA’s Prevention of Violence against Women and Children programme. She holds a doctoral degree in Social Psychology and has over two decades of experience in working towards incubating and establishing programmes on prevention of gender-based violence, particularly through mental health counselling and crisis intervention for survivors of violence, community mobilisation, and public engagement through art and research. Her expertise is in building models on prevention of gender-based violence in middle-income contexts and has developed SNEHA’s convergence model, which includes capacity building and training to support institutional responses (of health, law enforcement and the legal system) to gender-based violence, as well as advocacy. Dr. Nayreen’s research, programme designs and scholarship have contributed to the gender-based violence discourse in South Asia. She has undertaken several research projects in partnership with University College London, CREA, Ekjut and UNICEF and have collaborated with agencies such as Azim Premji Foundation, UNDP, UNFPA, USAID, Wellcome Trust and NIHR to deliver and evaluate programmes of scale in the region. She was awarded Real Woman of Honour 2010 Pearl Wave Sony Award for overcoming challenges in the development field to work with survivors of violence, the Karmaveer Puraskar Noble Laureate 2012 by the iCONGO confederation of international NGOs for her committed work in the field of violence against women and gender justice and the Woman Achiever Award in COVID-19 by the District Legal Services Authority.

Sushma Shende

Programme Director

Maternal and Child Health

Sushma Shende heads SNEHA’s Maternal and Child Health programme. She is an anthropologist by training and has more than 25 years of experience in developing and implementing large public health projects across tribal, rural, and urban settings. Prior to SNEHA, Sushma worked in BAIF and managed their Tribal Health programme in Gujarat. Her expertise includes strengthening public health and nutrition systems and developing partnerships in Urban areas. Earlier she also headed the Maternal and Newborn Programme and led the development of a strengthening primary care model In partnership with MCGM and also contributed to its scaling. She has also worked with several marquee donors such as WHO, CRY, and BMGF to deliver programmes and research studies across the MMRDA region. In 2013, she was a mentor for the Maternal Health Young Champions Programme, a fellowship run by the Institute of International Education and Harvard School of Public Health. Sushma has also published her research in leading public health international and national journals.

Dr. Rama Shyam

Programme Director

Empowerment, Health and Sexuality of Adolescents (EHSAS)

Dr. Rama Shyam is the Director of SNEHA’s Adolescent Health and Sexuality Education programme. She holds a doctoral degree in Social Sciences from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and has over 15 years of experience in both grassroots’ and international organisations, working in the development sector. In her most recent stint, she headed the Education and Citizenship programme with Apnalaya, Mumbai, working on developing a high-impact community engagement programme. Earlier, Rama co-founded SAHER (Society for Awareness, Harmony and Equal Rights), a youth-led organisation, working on peace-education, sexual and reproductive rights, leadership and citizenship in Mumbai. She has implemented programmes to scale in partnership with organisations such as USAID, United Nations Alliance of Civilisations, Tata Trusts, Magic Bus, US Consulate and many others. Prior to her engagement with SAHER, Rama had stints in academia and in training and capacity building and community development across themes such as peace-education, primary education, governance and youth development. She was awarded the Martii Ahistari Peacebuilder Award in 2012, for her peace-education activities in Mumbai, the Dasra Social Impact Village Capital Award in 2010, the Youth Action Net Fellowship in 2007 and Ashoka’s Changelooms Award in 2017.

Archana Redkar

Chief Operating Officer

Archana Redkar has been appointed as SNEHA’s Chief Operating Officer from April 2022 onwards for managing SNEHA’s domain functions of Finance, Human Resource, Administration and also spearhead the automation of domain functions with respect to all financial transactions. She is a qualified chartered accountant by training and has been with SNEHA since 2010. She has more than 25 years of experience in accounting, internal audit, taxation, bank audit and non-profit audits. In her previous role at SNEHA, as Director Finance, she was responsible for all the financial reporting and related processes at SNEHA. Over the past years, she has focused on adherence to compliances, accounting and reporting to donors and external stakeholders, ensuring streamlining, restructuring and strengthening of financial processes due to increased emphasis on best practices and transparency in financial reporting to all stakeholders. Before joining SNEHA, she has worked with development sector organisations such as Akanksha Foundation and Teach for India. She was a Dasra Social Impact Fellow in 2017 and attended their Leadership Programme for non-profit executives.

Dr. Anuja Jayaraman

Director

Research and Information Management

Dr. Anuja Jayaraman is a development economist and demographer with a Doctoral degree from Penn State University, USA and a Master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics. Anuja has a strong statistical background with over a decade of experience in international development programmes. She has an established track record of policy-oriented research in the areas of poverty and non-income dimensions of well-being, including maternal and child health outcomes in South Asia and Africa. She has proven ability in training surveyors and monitoring and coordinating large household surveys, as well as monitoring and evaluation of public health programmes. Anuja’s scholarship has been published in national and international journals of repute. At SNEHA, she leads the Research, M&E and Information Management functions.

Nikhat Shaikh

Programme Director

Prevention of Violence against Women and Children (Strategy & Implementation)

Nikhat Shaikh is the Director of SNEHA’s Prevention of Violence against Women and Children programme (Strategy and Implementation). She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) with Family and Child Welfare as her specialisation. She has over two decades of experience in the social sector working on the prevention of gender-based violence, particularly through crisis intervention and counselling for survivors of violence, working with male perpetrators, strengthening public systems response on gender-based violence and qualitative research. She is a master trainer on issues of gender-based violence with a focus on building capacity of health care providers, legal and law enforcement agencies, sensitising them for a coordinated response. She has proven ability in training police and cadets across Maharashtra while working with Special Cell to help women and children, a joint programme of Maharashtra police and TISS. In her previous role at SNEHA as Research Consultant, she supported the research unit in designing and conducting qualitative research studies and evaluation for evidence-based practice and policy. Her area of research includes motivation of frontline workers and community volunteers, adolescent health, community engagement and gender-based violence.