Our People

Ashish Karamchandani is a Partner at Monitor. He has extensive experience in Financial Services including Life Insurance, Property and Casualty Insurance, Retail and Corporate Banking, SME Housing Finance etc. He has worked in these areas on policy, market development, branding, operations enhancement, sales force effectiveness, distribution strategy, mergers and acquisitions, joint-ventures, and outsourcing.

After 7 years of leading Monitor’s consulting business in India, Ashish now heads up Monitor Inclusive Markets which catalyzes “market-based solutions to create social change”, working both at a broad sector level (developing a more rigorous underpinning of the opportunity, its drivers and barriers and how to address the barriers), and at the level of specific initiatives. One of the specific initiatives Ashish is extensively involved in is low income housing.  Ashish and his team are currently in the process of facilitating a number of pilots that will help “make” this market.

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Michael Kubzansky

Mike Kubzansky is a Global Account Manager in Monitor’s National Economic Development and Security (NEDS) practice, and is based in Washington, DC.  He has spent the last year leading Monitor Inclusive Markets’ work on “Market-Based Solutions” to development challenges, a multi-sponsor study to identify and scale up the most promising commercially viable approaches in India, in sectors such as education, health, agriculture, water, energy, etc.  He also worked at Monitor in the 1990s in New York and Johannesburg leading cases in the telecommunications, transport, professional services, real estate and health care industries. 

Prior to rejoining Monitor, Mike spent over five years at the World Bank Group in Washington, DC.  His work there included managing a start-up IFC program to promote South-South investment, directing strategy and ICT initiatives for the East Asia and Pacific Region of the World Bank, and leading the Development Marketplace (DM) program (DM is the World Bank’s flagship program for funding external innovations in development).  At DM he managed a doubling of the program in terms of funds leveraged and grants made, funding innovative projects worldwide in a range of sectors, including water, health, education, and general service delivery (paired with the 2004 World Development Report on “Making Services Work for the Poor”). DM’s focus under Mike also included market-based initiatives and partnerships for biodiversity conservation.  In the East Asia and Pacific Region of the Bank, he was part of the management team and was responsible for articulating the overall regional strategy and results framework, including health and social protection sector strategies.

Mike has also worked in the telecommunications industry and low-income housing finance industries in the U.S., and in the microfinance sector in Zimbabwe.  He earned his MBA from Northwestern University (Kellogg) and an undergraduate degree from Brown University, both in the U.S.  He lives in Washington, DC and spends significant amounts of time in India.

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Suchitra Shenoy

Suchitra Shenoy is a senior consultant at Monitor and is based in Mumbai, India. She is a part of Monitor Inclusive Markets.

Currently Suchitra is working on a multi-sponsor, market-based solutions study to identify and scale up the most promising commercially viable approaches in India, in sectors such as education, health, agriculture, water, energy, etc. Within this study, her work has involved analyzing areas of healthcare and education – particularly looking at ways in which costs of service delivery can be lowered to make it more affordable to the poor. Suchitra’s experience at Monitor also includes trying to expand the current urban housing market to include low income households (those that earn $150 per month and above). She was part of the team that worked on analyzing and understanding customer demand and the obstacles faced by builders, financial institutions and customers. She helped start pilot projects in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune (the pilots are to ‘kick start’ the market and prove feasibility).

Prior to Monitor she was engaged in writing a book on the Aravind Eye Care System (one of  the world’s largest and most productive eye care service providers, it is firmly focused on providing care to the poor, and is fully financially viable despite serving 2/3rds of its patients for free).

Suchitra’s educational background includes a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and an undergraduate degree from Brandeis University in the US.

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Nishant Lalwani

Nishant Lalwani is a senior consultant at Monitor Group and is based in Mumbai, India. He is a part of Monitor Inclusive Markets.

Currently Nishant is working on a multi-sponsor, market-based solutions study to identify and scale up the most promising commercially viable approaches in India. He is leading several pieces of work in healthcare, energy and finance, including a viability assessment of village water filtration plants and a project that seeks to expand the scope of microfinance channels for distribution of non-credit products.

Before Monitor, Nishant worked with the United Nations Development Programme in Zambia, where he helped develop new financing products for microfinance institutions across the country. He also spent several years in London and New York with Marakon Associates, a boutique strategy consulting firm. During this time he worked on a wide range of projects with some of the world’s largest companies, including a high-level strategy for a Swiss pharmaceutical firm and a new market growth plan for a British confectionary maker. Nishant has also worked part-time with NGOs in Africa (Link Community Development) and India (Dalit Foundation) and continues to be involved with similar causes on an ongoing, pro-bono basis.

He has a Master’s in Aeronautical Engineering and a Bachelor’s in General Engineering from Cambridge University, UK. He has also published academic papers in conjunction with the Aeronautics and Astronautics Group of M.I.T., Boston. Nishant was born and raised in the UK but has recently moved to India.

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Anamitra Deb

Anamitra Deb joined the Monitor Group in February 2005, and is currently a senior consultant based in Mumbai, India. He is a part of the Monitor Inclusive Markets team that is focused on ‘market-based solutions to create social change’. 

Currently, Anamitra is working on a multi-sponsor, market-based solutions study to identify and scale up the most promising commercially viable approaches in India, in sectors such as education, health, agriculture, water, energy, etc. He is leading pieces of work in areas relevant to livelihoods generation for sustainable employment. This includes assessing the viability of opportunities and business models in agribusiness; understanding the dynamics of the vocational training space; and identifying opportunities for lower-skilled youth to gain skills training and employment in the construction and textiles industries.

Prior to moving to Mumbai, Anamitra worked primarily out of Monitor's Toronto office, where his primary consulting engagements were in the media and telecommunications industries, pharmaceuticals and chemical industries. In 2006-2007, he also focused on public sector service delivery, institutional capacity building and democratic reform in the MENA region.

Prior to Monitor, Anamitra did internships with community development organizations, environmental lobby groups and development charities. He holds two Masters of Science degrees from Oxford University, in Environmental Change and Management, as well as Forced Migration. He also has a B.A. (Hons) in Economics and International Relations from Mount Allison University, Canada.

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Raina Singh

Raina is a consultant at Monitor and is based in Mumbai, India. She is a part of the Monitor Inclusive Markets team.

Currently Raina is working on a multi-sponsor, market-based solutions study to identify and scale up the most promising commercially viable approaches in India, in sectors such as education, health, agriculture, water, energy, etc.

Before joining Monitor, Raina worked at Hole-In-The-Wall Education Limited based out of Delhi, India, where she worked towards bridging the digital divide in rural and slum areas of India.  She also spent a couple of years working at Accenture Consulting, where her primary consulting engagements were in the hospitality and utilities industry.

Raina has an MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad and an undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University in the US.

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Pradeep Prabhala

Pradeep Prabhala is a Senior Consultant working in Monitor's Mumbai Office. He is a part of the Monitor Inclusive Markets initiative.

Pradeep's work within the inclusive markets group includes developing growth strategy for an education organization in the primary education space, one that caters to children from urban slums in India. This included a strategic analysis of the organization's operations, primary research to understand the customers and market context and an identification of critical success factors for growth into new geographies.

Prior to joining the inclusive markets initiative, Pradeep advised a number of corporate clients in the consumer goods space in India. His work included advising clients on growth strategy, marketing strategy, go to market strategy. During this stint, he developed new market segment go-to-market strategy for a major global agrochemical company. This included understanding farmers' buying behaviour and willingness to pay and understanding front end supply chain players and their motivations, to develop a comprehensive marketing and distribution strategy.

Before joining Monitor, Pradeep worked with Hindustan Unilever Limited in India as a Key Account Manager. As a part of the job, he managed cross functional business relationships with large multinational retailers such as Metro AG and Dairy Farm International. His work included developing joint business plans for individual customers. He also managed a number of supply chain initiatives during this period. Also, during this stint, Pradeep worked with the Unilever business in South Africa to develop a business blue print for a new brand launch.

Pradeep earned his MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University and an Undergraduate mechanical engineering degree from Osmania University in India.

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Madhavi Soman

Madhavi is a senior team member of the affordable housing initiative at Monitor Inclusive Markets. She has over 20 years of experience in the banking and technology sectors.  She has held leadership positions in some of India’s leading financial sector and technology companies and has been responsible for key strategic initiatives and building high growth new businesses. Her forte is conceptualization of these initiatives/businesses and implementing them in record times. 

Madhavi has been instrumental in standardizing processes and establishing systems to directly impact the efficiency and scaling up efforts of the MIM team. Madhavi also brings a rich and diverse set of financial industry relationships which aid the team in a significant manner.

Some of her leadership roles prior to joining Monitor have been:

• Senior General Manager at ICICI Bank’s Rural, Microfinance and Agri-business (RMAG) Group 
• Global Head - Business Analysis Practice at Mphasis BFL Ltd 
• Chief Strategic Initiatives, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance
• Head of the Credit Card business at ICICI LTD

Madhavi has also worked with HDFC Bank and Tata Consulting Services. 

Madhavi was a consistent scholastic award winner throughout her academic career and graduated in Commerce from Mumbai’s Sydenham College and topped her Masters in Management Studies (MMS) batch at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.

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Bala Venkatachalam

Bala is a core member of the affordable housing team at Monitor Inclusive Markets. He is responsible for end-to-end management of Monitor’s housing pilots and is currently leading efforts on starting and managing pilots in Ahmedabad and jointly in the greater Mumbai area.

The scope of his work covers all aspects of the pilots, ranging from lead generation to finding developers most suited for partnering with Monitor to implement the pilots. Bala plays a significant role in the demand aggregation phase of the pilots which is facilitated through local area employers. Based on Bala’s work, the team has a keen understanding of the supply side gap that exists in the low income urban housing market in India and is also able to develop the most “desirable” housing designs and models to best bridge this gap.

Prior to joining Monitor, Bala founded Ran Research, a Mumbai based technology driven education and assessment company. He has also served in several leadership roles, including nationwide Head of Operations at Pratham Education Initiative, India’s largest education sector non-profit organization covering more than 400,000 economically underprivileged children across 15 states in India. Before moving to the non profit sector, Bala was part of the assurance and transaction advisory teams at KPMG’s Indian office where he worked on several audit and M&A engagements. Bala is an Associate Chartered Accountant (ACA) affiliated with the Institute of Chartered Accountants, India. He also holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Master of Commerce from the University of Madras.

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Smarinita Shetty

Smarinita is a Consultant with Monitor Inclusive Markets. She has over 11 years of experience leading and managing functions across operations, sales and business development, largely in start-up environments.

At Monitor Inclusive Markets, Smarinita is responsible for the sales and marketing efforts of the Housing team, closely interacting with external stakeholders, sponsors and potential partner developers.

Prior to joining Monitor, Smarinita was with JP Morgan where she led the firm's investment banking research operations in Mumbai. Prior to JP Morgan, she co-founded Netscribes, a third party research outsourcing firm, and was responsible for setting up the firm's US sales office, its research operations in India and fundraising. She subsequently went on to sell her stake and became actively involved with Magic Bus, a non-profit that works with at-risk children in Mumbai.

Smarinita has a BE in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai and a Masters in Management Studies (MMS) in Finance from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.

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Naina Subberwal Batra

Naina Subberwal Batra leads Monitor Inclusive Markets’ HR and recruitment initiative. She is responsible for the ongoing recruitment efforts for the Affordable Housing team. The scope of her work includes thinking through the human asset needs of the affordable housing business over the next 12 months and then working towards recruiting these additional resources by managing the entire recruiting process to ensure that the "best fit" candidates are brought on board. 

Prior to joining Monitor, Naina worked in HR with Citibank in Mumbai, and with KPMG's consulting practice in Dubai.  She has also worked as an HR consultant with Resource Management Technologies, a startup providing HR advice to a wide range of companies.  Naina also runs her own art gallery specializing in contemporary Indian art from Bengal. 

Naina has a Master's degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University, and a Bachelors degree in International Relations and Economics from Mount Holyoke College, USA.  She also has a diploma in Economics from the London School of Economic.

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Nabomita Dutta

Nabomita Dutta is the Chief of Staff for Monitor’s Inclusive Markets team. She works for the CEO of the group and serves as his representative to social entrepreneurs, corporations, donors, and community and government partners. In addition to strategic relationship management, she is responsible for fundraising, targeted analysis, communication, and identifying key opportunities in the field.

Prior to Monitor, Nabomita worked with Kiva as their representative to SELFINA, one of Tanzania’s largest microfinance organizations. She helped SELFINA fundraise person to person microloans through Kiva, improve their operational efficiency, and quantify their social impact through metrics. Before that, Nabomita spent three years in strategy consulting at Deloitte Consulting, where she worked on several projects primarily within the financial services and consumer products industries. She also has experience leading pro-bono consulting projects for non-profit organizations and volunteering with local low income immigrant communities.

Nabomita has a Bachelors degree in Economics and Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Pooja Gupta

Pooja Gupta is a consultant at Monitor and is based in Mumbai, India. She is a part of Monitor Inclusive Markets.
Prior to Monitor, Pooja was working with a US based non profit organization called Endeavor that aimed to support economic development of the emerging countries by supporting entrepreneurs.  Here she was involved in identifying and supporting high impact entrepreneurs who have potential to form the back bone of this economic development through wealth and job creation.
Before that, she spent two years in management consulting in the performance improvement division of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Here she consulted public sector clients on improvement of public service delivery.
Pooja holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

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