
Vandana Das has been one of the earliest supporters of TSP as a concept and organizational idea. She has supported our initiatives even after she moved to the US and is deeply concerned about the situation of youth from disadvantaged (both economically and socially) backgrounds especially about our Adivasi youth from tribal states, districts and villages. She is particularly concerned with the situation of youth in her home state of Bihar, but also the adivasi youth in regions of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
She joined the Civil Services in 1997 and led some high-stake assignments for Government of India including serving as deputy chief of security at Chennai airport. Her passion for social inclusion led her to Diversity & Inclusion where she designed and launched several corporate wide programs to remove barriers to inclusion for all groups engaging employees at all levels to create an inclusive environment. This includes working on gender, and inclusion of people of all abilities, introducing tools to integrate thinking about inclusion in day to day work life. Vandana is currently consulting at the International Finance Corporation headquarters at Washington D.C., a part of the World Bank Group, which is driven by its mission of inclusive growth. Vandana has a master’s degree in Chemistry from University of Delhi, and executive certification in Strategic Diversity & Inclusion Management from Georgetown University. She briefly served as the nodal officer for Tsunami relief operations at Chennai airport and volunteered at earthquake relief operations at Port-au-Prince, Haiti during the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti.
Vandana offers a rich perspective on inclusion challenges social groups commonly encounter and how to overcome them. She will be TSP lead and key advisor for our Outreach Programmes on Youth Empowerment and support us in the formulation, development and implementation of our programmes, and check outcomes in terms of gender and other inclusion principles.
She is an adviser for our online courses offered through TSP Academy and is on the panel of reviewers for our Public Policy Courses under development- both online and Capacity Building Seminar Courses.