Founder & Managing Trustee
"I believe in equality of opportunity – and the only route to it is finally through great education. When Gandhi came back from South Africa in 1915, Gokhale told him to "Make India proud of herself". I find solace in the thought that Neev Kids will complete what Gokhale and Gandhi started. I hope to create an academic institution which remains true to our mission and values and outlasts me, my generation and many others - schools where Neev alumni are proud to send their great grandchildren for an education which continues to stand for excellence forever."
Kavita has worked in diverse fields of scientific research, corporate restructuring, finance and now education. Her interests include reading on education, brain development, History and India. She is a science post graduate from Bombay University, and an alumnus of Harvard Business School. She founded and heads Neev Schools and Neev Academy. Her passion for revolutionizing education in changing India inspires the educators at Neev and provides strategic direction to the board.
Vice Chairman - TeamLease Services Ltd.
"Education is the only way to change the reality that the two most important decisions a child in India makes are choosing your parents and pin code wisely". Manish Sabharwal is currently Vice Chairman of Teamlease Services, one of India's largest employers. Prior to Teamlease he had co-founded India Life which was acquired by NYSE listed Hewitt Associates; consequently he served as Managing Director of Hewitt Outsourcing (Asia) based in Singapore. He is a member of the Central Advisory Board of Education, Member of the Advisory Board of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, and a Governing Board Member of the National Council of Applied Economic Research. He has also served as an Independent Director on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India. Manish is also Managing Trustee of the New India Foundation (that offers fellowships to write books about post-1947 India), a columnist for Indian Express, and a Board Member of Neev Academy. He has an MBA from the Wharton School and Bachelors degree from Shriram College of Commerce, Delhi.
Manish is part of the Finance and governance committee as well and guides the institution towards financial sustainability and strong governance structure.
Managing Director - TeamLease Services Ltd
Ashok comes with deep understanding in Human resources. He is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and graduated from Shri Ram College of Commerce, and before that schooled in Rishi Valley School. He is also part of HR Subcommittee and provide guidance to Neev on HR policies and systems.
Managing Director - Lupin Ltd
"The standard Neev aspires to continues to impress me. The school started with the mission of offering world-class education in India, but being at Neev has rapidly become a truly unique education experience" . Nilesh is a Chemical Engineer from the University Department of Chemical Technology (Mumbai) and an MBA from the Wharton School (Philadelphia). He is the Managing Director of Lupin, a leading global pharmaceutical company.
Eminent Writer & Columnist
"In an ideal world, schools would do the following things: teach skills and knowledge that are relevant to the times we live in; cultivate a growth mindset; identify and nurture a child’s passions and unique talents; impart a moral compass; develop character and grit. Even achieving one of these goals is hard to do but Neev aspires for all of the above. That is why I’m delighted to be a trustee."
Shoba Narayan is the author of five books. She has been a journalist and columnist for over 30 years, writing about health, relationships, identity and culture for global publications, winning a James Beard award and Pulitzer Fellowship. She has taught courses at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore. She lectured at universities in the US. She is the host and anchor of Bird Podcast: about birds and nature. She is the overseas correspondent for Radio New Zealand. Her work and understanding of relationships, identity and culture brings diverse perspective to the board
Director, Kanpur Education Society
"In the words of Einstein - Education is not the learning of facts but the training of minds to think. Education should be about empowering the child with skills and attitudes of a lifelong learner - to think, to question, to take action. It is my privilege to be a part of the Neev community and I find myself truly inspired by the possibilities that lie ahead."
Abhishek is a Doctorate in Commerce & Business Administration and a member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. He is a law graduate and has done his MBA from Symbiosis Pune. Currently he is the Director of Kanpur Education Society, which runs schools in Kanpur and is making commendable efforts in bringing quality education within the reach of the masses. His deep acumen in school management and finance and legal aspects helps Neev board provide the directives to school management. He is part of Infrastructure and Finance committee at Neev.
Eminent Lawyer, Founding Partner ASLF Law Offices
""Vidya dhanam sarva dhane pradhanam" (Education is the best wealth among all the wealth anyone can have) Anup Shah is a renowned legal expert and has been in the domain since 1981. He started his career in Mumbai serving as a counsel in the High Court of Mumbai before moving to Bangalore to pursue a long and successful stint in the Bangalore High Court and Civil Court. He established his own firm in 1993 that has now grown to 70 employees in Bangalore and Chennai. Anup Shah is also on the board of organisations in the construction and energy industry. He specializes in matters pertaining to commercial documentation, real estate transactions while advising developers and investors. As a recognizable expert in the legal domain, Anup continues to inspire and actively contributes to several legal forums. He responds to queries from the general public in the Times of India under the heading “Legal Eagle"
An avid reader with one of the largest law book collections that is open as a law library to all the members of the public who wish to engage in research and learning in the legal field.
"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at All" - Aristotle
Educated in Delhi at Presentation convent, through schooling and Lady Irwin college for graduation and B.Ed., and then through her stay and travel around the world, Priti understands that her beliefs and values are only aspirational if she doesn’t show them in action. She began her career in teaching at the age 20 and has been a learner ever since.
The readings, trainings and understandings be it on technical aspects of curriculum development, assessments, literacy, numeracy and the adaptive strands of how children and adults act and react, building relationships, working with strengths, all keep coming together as she works with a firm conviction that true education is “Prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child!”.
"Dr. Leena Chandran Wadia is Professor and Dean (Education and Outreach) at The University of Trans-disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU), Bangalore.
She received her Ph.D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. Her thesis as well as her postdoctoral work at ETH Zurich involved high-performance computing. Since then, she has been a researcher at several places in India and abroad including the National Centre for Software Technology (NCST, now CDAC), TIFR, and IIT Bombay, all in Mumbai, CERN and EPFL in Switzerland, and the Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai, where she was engaged in research and policy advocacy in the areas of education, public health, renewable energy, and agriculture. Besides her scientific publications, she has brought out several reports and publications in these areas. She also served in the corporate sector, as Senior VP and CTO, of a start-up company in the Telecom sector (Netcore Solutions, now Netcore Cloud).
Leena had the privilege of being a member of the technical secretariat to the Dr. Kasturirangan committee on the National Education Policy (NEP), and a member of the drafting committee of India’s Draft NEP 2019. Her present focus is in the area of vocational education and its implementation in the spirit of NEP 2020. She co-authored a recent report on vocational education for UNESCO in 2020, in their ‘State of the Education Report for India’ series. She has also contributed to the preparation of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for school education, in the area of vocational education.