Our Leadership

Our Founders

Kailash Satyarthi

Sumedha Kailash

Kailash Satyarthi

Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, a social reformer par excellence, stands as one of the tallest leaders and the loudest voice for the oppressed and voiceless. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for his ‘struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.’ A Global Thought Leader and the founder of the Satyarthi Movement for Global Compassion, his dedication to social reforms is unparalleled. His fearless and unrelenting policy advocacy efforts towards the elimination of violence against the powerless have resulted in path-breaking legislations globally.

As a worldwide campaigner, he has been the architect of the single largest civil society network for the most exploited children, the Global March Against Child Labour which led to the adoption of ILO Convention 182 on worst forms of child labour in 1999. He is also the founding president of the Global Campaign for Education, an exemplary civil society movement working to end the global education crisis and Good Weave International for being the first of its kind certification and social labelling mechanism for child labour-free carpets in South Asia.

His fearless and unrelenting policy advocacy efforts towards the elimination of violence against the powerless have resulted in groundbreaking legislations globally.

Through his organization, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Mr. Satyarthi has liberated more than 130,000 children from child labour, slavery, trafficking, and other forms of exploitation and pioneered a successful model for their education, rehabilitation, and reintegration into mainstream society.

Mr. Satyarthi’s life and mission embody the profound impact of compassion, illustrating its transformative power to drive meaningful change. He strongly believes that compassion is not a weak emotion but one that provides endless energy and drive to take compassionate action to alleviate others’ suffering as if it were one’s own.

Through his latest movement, Satyarthi Movement for Global Compassion, Mr. Satyarthi aims to globalise compassion to promote a more just, peaceful and sustainable world.

Sumedha Kailash

Sumedha Kailash co-founded Bal Ashram Trust in 1988 with the aim of creating a safe environment where children, especially girls can learn and grow without any fear of being exploited. Born in a family of freedom fighters & revolutionaries of the Indian freedom struggle, Sumedha deeply espoused values of freedom, justice, compassion, and female empowerment. Under her leadership, the Bal Ashram Trust also created Bal Mitra Gram and Banjara Education Centres to bring about a constructive change in the lives of women and girls.

She has been relentlessly working in this field for 45 years along with her team of activists and women’s councils to generate awareness on issues of child labour, child trafficking, girls’ education, and women empowerment among various tribes and communities in Rajasthan. Her impeccable journey won the recognition of Mahatma Award (2021), Ramkrishna Jaidayal Harmony Award in the year 2020, Godfrey Philip Bravery Award (2009) and Aadhi Aabadi Women Achievers Awards in the year 2014.

Sumedha Kailash

Chief Executive Officer

Asmita Satyarthi

A global leader and social reformer, Asmita holds an MBA from Indian School of Business in India and has led numerous organisations and driven transformation in areas of equality, justice, peace and sustainability.

With an unwavering grit to advocate for social transformation, Asmita has spearheaded various organizations, including Global Sustainability Network, Wockhardt Foundation, and Goodera, among others. She has diverse experience ranging from the US Department of Justice, International Labour Organisation to grassroot work in India and other geographies.

Asmita is committed to globalising compassion and establishing the urgency of compassionate action across all walks of life. Asmita has received several prestigious awards including the US State Department’s ‘Exceptional Leadership for Social Justice’ award, the Rotary Club of Mumbai’s Young Achievers Award, and the Dainik Bhaskar Group’s Police Pride Award in Rajasthan.

Our Advisory Board

Gabriela Ramos

Minal Bajaj

Narayana Murthy

Pramath Raj Sinha

Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar

Gabriela Ramos

Assistant Director General for Social and Human Sciences, UNESCO

Gabriela Ramos

Assistant Director General for Social and Human Sciences, UNESCO

Gabriela Ramos is the Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, where she oversees the institution’s contributions to building inclusive societies. Her mandate includes tackling economic inequalities of income and opportunity, and promoting social inclusion and gender equality. She also oversees the youth support agenda, promotion of values through sport, fight against racism and discrimination, and ethics of science, including of neurotechnology and the internet of things.
She has overseen the development and adoption of the first global instrument to promote the ethics of artificial intelligence, adopted by acclamation in 2021 by UNESCO’s General Conference.

She launched the Global Forum against Racism, to catalyse the political support that member countries have given to this cause. She also leads the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme to help UNESCO Member States strengthen the connection between research and policy and between knowledge and action. She is currently leading UNESCO and international policy-makers and experts’ call to establish a global governance of the ethics of neurotechnology.

Previously, Gabriela Ramos worked as Cabinet Director and Sherpa for the G20, G7 and APEC at the OECD, contributing to increasing the OECD’s global impact and leading key initiatives such as “Inclusive Growth”, “New Approaches to Economic Challenges”, “Climate Change and Growth”, the gender equality strategy and work on well-being and children.

In 2013 she was awarded the Order of Merit (Ordre du Mérite) by the President of France. Her work to promote gender equality has earned her several awards including from Forbes and Apolitico. She is a board member of the “Paris Peace Forum”; the “UNICEF Advisory Board”; as well as the “Lancet Commissions on COVID and on Men’s Violence against Women”, and member of the Danone “Enterprise à Mission” Committee.

Minal Bajaj

Honorary Director- Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation

Minal Bajaj has been heading various activities of the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation (JBF) as its Honorary Director, since 2009. She is involved in every aspect of the Foundation’s activities related to the Jamnalal Bajaj Awards initiative or looking into various potential developmental projects of other organization to provide financial aid.

In her multifaceted role within the Bajaj Group her involvement and leadership has extended beyond the Foundation to sports, art and cultural initiatives, instituting her own NGO for the upliftment of marginalised urban women as well as creating the Bajaj Family Archives.

In 2012, Minal founded Hamaara Sapna, her NGO in Mumbai. It is a culmination of a long held dream to give illiterate and home bound women a sense of self respect, self-confidence and relevant skills to navigate an increasingly complex world. Along with English, yoga, self-defense and computers, these ladies are taught tailoring with Khadi, thus promoting the ideology of self-reliance and Swadesh which was the belief of the guiding hands of the Bajaj Family.

As a donor trustee of JBF, Minal was actively involved at every stage of the restoration process of Dr. Bhaudaji Lad Museum, India’s second oldest museum. As an avid sports fan, she extensively contributes her time, ideas and organizational skills to the Olympic Gold Quest and Ultimate Table Tennis as the Director of India’s top league for table tennis co-founded by her husband Niraj Bajaj.

Minal Bajaj

Honorary Director- Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation

Narayana Murthy

Founder, Infosys Limited (NYSE: INFY)

Narayana Murthy

Founder, Infosys Limited (NYSE: INFY)

Narayana Murthy founded Infosys in 1981. Infosys is a highly innovative software services global company listed on NYSE in the US and on the Bombay Stock Exchange in Mumbai with about US$ 18 billion in revenue and about US$ 73 billion in market capitalization.

He conceptualized, articulated, and implemented the Global Delivery Model (GDM) which has become the backbone of the Indian software industry. GDM is based on collaborative distributed software development principles and has resulted in the delivery of superior quality software to global customers delivered on time and within budget. He also introduced the concept of 24-hour workday to the world.

In 2014, He was ranked 13th among CNBC’s 25 global business leaders. Fortune magazine listed him among the ‘12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time’ in 2012. He received Padma Vibhushan from India in 2008, Officer of Legion d’honneur from France in 2008, and CBE from Britain in 2007. The Economist ranked him among the 10 most-admired global business leaders in 2005. The Financial Times’ list of “Business pioneers in technology” ranked him among the top 10 in March 2015. He is the first Indian winner of Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year award.

He serves on the board of the United Nations Foundation. He has served on the boards of Ford Foundation in New York, Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (New Jersey), HSBC in London, and Unilever in London. He is a member of the advisory board of the University of Tokyo (Japan), ESSEC Business School (France), IESE Business School (Spain) and Fundação Dom Cabral (FDC – Brazil). He is also a member of the Board of Governors and Trustees of the Asian Institute of Management, Manila.

Pramath Raj Sinha, PhD

Founder & Chairman, Harappa Education

Pramath is a pioneering force in Indian higher education. He is the Founder &Chairman of Harappa (now part of upGrad), which strives to become India’slargest online institution focused on teaching habits and skills critical toworkplace success in the 21st century. He is the Founding Dean and a member of the Executive Board of ISB which rapidly became one of the top-20 businessschools in the world. He is also the Founder & Chairman of the Board of Trusteesof the acclaimed Ashoka University, a liberal arts university which launchedthepopular Young India Fellowship.

Pramath has been instrumental in setting up a wide spectrumof change-basedhigher education initiatives, including a management programfor career- oriented women, an entrepreneurship fellowship for the Himalayan region, anda solution-focused design education for the built environment. He has also beenamedia entrepreneur, education consultant and management advisor at the9.9Group, which he founded, and a Partner at McKinsey & Company. He has alsoauthored two books: An Idea Whose Time Has Come (2011) and Learn, Don’t Study (2023).

Academics are his first love: He received a PhD and an MSE fromthe Universityof Pennsylvania and a BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he was honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2018.

Pramath Raj Sinha, PhD

Founder & Chairman, Harappa Education

Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar

Former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar

Former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

Dr. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar is renowned for his world-class scientific research in polymer science and engineering, his transformative leadership of national research institutions, and his pioneering movements, such as evolving global systems for the protection of traditional knowledge, creating strong yet balanced IPR systems, and promoting an inclusive innovation movement based on the concept of Gandhian Engineering. He has been an influential thought leader in shaping Science, Technology, and Innovation policies in post-liberalized India.

The President of India honored Dr. Mashelkar with three of the highest civilian awards: Padma Shri (1991), Padma Bhushan (2000), and Padma Vibhushan (2014). He has received a record 48 honorary doctorates from universities around the world, from London to Pretoria, Wisconsin to Monash, and Delhi.

He served as the Director of the National Chemical Laboratory (1989-95) and later became the longest-serving head of three major organizations: Director General of CSIR (1995-2006), Chairman of the National Innovation Foundation (2000-2018), and President of the Global Research Alliance (2007-2017). He was also the President of the Indian National Science Academy (2004-2006) and the President of the Materials Research Society of India (2004-2006).

Dr. Mashelkar has achieved many firsts in his career. He was the first Indian to win the prestigious TWAS-Lenovo Science Prize (2018), the highest science prize awarded by the World Academy of Sciences; the first Indian from India to be elected as a Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors (2017); the first Asian scientist to win the BusinessWeek (USA) award of “Stars of Asia,” presented by George H.W. Bush, the former President of the USA; and the first and only scientist to win the JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award (1998).

ABOUT US

SMGC is a global movement to ignite ‘Compassion in Action’ in the world. It is born out of four decades of Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s revolutionary life and path-breaking endeavour as a social reformer.

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