The People
Mr Sameer Kochhar
Chairman, SKOCH Group
Reforms historian and author of best-seller ModiNomics, Sameer Kochhar is Chairman, SKOCH Group. He is a passionate advocate of social, digital and financial inclusion and is a foremost expert on governance and inclusive growth. His work has been acclaimed globally and endorsed by Mr Narendra Modi, Mr M Venkaiah Naidu, Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Arun Jaitley, Mr P Chidambaram, Mr Yashwant Sinha, Dr C Rangarajan and Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia and so on. In his thinking and writings and activities, his profound admiration for India’s economic reforms and in extension, those outstanding personalities who strive to make these reforms more meaningful and broad-based comes out clear and unambiguous. He has published over 18 volumes, notable being:.
- ModiNomics (2014)
- Defeating Poverty: Jan Dhan and Beyond (2015)
- Modi’s Odyssey: Digital India, Developed India (2016)
Most of these publications are recommended references undergraduate courses in Delhi University and post-graduate courses at Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad).
He is President, SKOCH Development Foundation, a Section-8 not-for-profit charitable organization that supports 400 tribal children in North East and Uttarkhand. The Foundation works for the capacity building of women and has reached out to over 15,000 women across India for financial literacy and digital literacy.
Dr Gursharan Dhanjal
Vice Chairman, SKOCH Group
Dr Gursharan Dhanjal, MA, M.Phil, PhD from Delhi University, an expert in development economics. He is Vice Chairman, SKOCH Group. He is also Editor of INCLUSION—a quarterly publication that focuses on inclusive growth related areas.
He has led various research projects, impact assessments and field studies in MSMEs, women empowerment, entitlements, rights, sanitation, social inclusion, health, financial inclusion, e-governance and ICT for development that included traversing across the country, collecting citizen voices for over two decades now.
A prolific writer, Dr Dhanjal has contributed over 200 columns in leading national dailies including The Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Financial Express and The Pioneer. He has published research papers in several journals of repute in addition to authoring following widely acclaimed books: Tarapur: The Politics of Nuclear Age; and, Infrastructure and Governance.
He was member of the Working Group on ICT in Higher Education constituted by Planning Commission for the 12th Five Year Plan.
Ms Manisha Kochhar
Director, SKOCH Development Foundation
She leads SAMAVESH – Foundation’s investor awareness and financial literacy grassroots programme and also SHAKTI – a women empowerment programme that works with women for gender equality and empowerment.
Manisha Kochhar is Director, SKOCH Group. Graduate in English Literature from Delhi University, she has over 25 years of working experience that spans various industries. She looks after the outreach programmes of the group that relate to gender empowerment, entitlements, literacy, financial inclusion and actively engages with all field projects concerning social, digital and financial inclusion. She leads SAMAVESH – Foundation’s investor awareness and financial literacy grassroots programme and also SHAKTI – a women empowerment programme that works with women for gender equality and empowerment.
She has extensively travelled across the country to study, document and to promote inclusive growth. She takes keen interest in urban development projects like sanitation, water, electricity and delivery of citizen services. She has carried out several impact assessment surveys of nationally important schemes like MGNREGA, JNNURM and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). Her areas of interest include working with children with special needs, marginalised women and minorities.