Let’s talk collaborative philanthropy! We are joined by Anna Hakobyan (Chief Impact Officer at CIFF — the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation), Deepali Khanna (Managing Director for Asia at the Rockefeller Foundation) and Anurag Banerjee (Co-Founder & CEO of Quilt.AI) for a candid and thought-provoking conversation.
This is an in-depth episode with views from three influential and consequential thought-leaders in philanthropy and social good, who bring a breadth of experience and expertise ranging from grant-making and impact measurement to data-sharing and artificial intelligence for good.
Collaboration in the world of philanthropy is not only increasing in prominence but is also becoming ever more sophisticated and innovative.
We take a look at collaboration across numerous dimensions, including funder to funder; funder and grantees; grantee to grantee; Global South to Global South; private and non-profit sectors; and large/experienced organisations to small/inexperienced ones.
We also discuss how impact measurement, evaluation findings and evidence reviews should be viewed as a public good; fully transparent and shared widely; within an environment of trust that creates safe spaces for candid exchanges on what works and what does not.
And, we explore the importance of going beyond traditional knowledge-sharing by targeting the right audiences with key insights at just the right time when they’re in the decision-making process. This is an episode that will inform you and equip you to achieve more social good.
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About Deepali Khanna
Managing Director, Asia Regional Office
The Rockefeller Foundation
As the Managing Director of Asia Region Office, Deepali Khanna manages the Foundation’s policy, advocacy, grant-making, and partnerships in Asia. She leads the Rockefeller Foundation’s initiatives to convene and catalyze strategic collaborations that advance development in Asia, as well as harness Asia’s role in enhancing the wellbeing of humanity in the region and around the world.
Deepali joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2015. She most recently served as Director and managed one of the Foundation’s flagship initiatives in India, Smart Power for Rural Development (SPRD). In this role, she provided leadership and direction across the full range of activities, partners, and resources of the initiative to provide affordable and clean energy access to over a million people in India.
Prior to joining the Rockefeller Foundation, Deepali served as Director of Youth Learning with the MasterCard Foundation, an independent, private foundation based in Toronto, Canada. She was responsible for the global grant-making strategy across more than 50 projects within the portfolio, managing a budget of USD 800 million. Deepali has held multiple leadership positions with Plan International, including Country Director for Vietnam and Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, where she led overall strategic planning within the region and managed operations in 12 countries.
Deepali earned her bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Delhi University and holds a certificate from the Humanitarian Leadership Program at Harvard Business School.
About Anna Hakobyan
Chief Impact Officer
The Children's Investment Fund Foundation - CIFF
Anna Hakobyan is CIFF’s Chief Impact Officer and oversees evidence generation and application to inform and assess CIFF’s portfolio of investments in areas of health, nutrition, education and climate change.
Before joining CIFF in 2009, Anna led the Learning and Evaluation function at Y Care International working on programmes in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Before this, Anna was a Senior Policy and Research Coordinator at Transparency International where she developed and managed an evidence-based advisory desk for governments and multilateral agencies on good governance and transparency. In the early years of her career, Anna worked at the World Bank and civil society organisations.
Her professional interests and expertise include generation and uptake of evidence for policy change at national and global levels, impact assessments, use of technology to drive impact, and transparency and accountability initiatives.
Anna holds a Master’s Degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, UK and is a Soros Foundation scholar. She was elected and served as Trustee of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development and is engaged with a number of European and Africa-based networks focusing on issues of impact, quality and accountability in the international development sector.
About Anurag Banerjee
Co-Founder and CEO
Quilt.AI
Anurag Banerjee is the co-founder and CEO of Quilt.AI – a technology firm aimed at enabling scale, understanding and empathy between organizations / institutions and the billions of people on the planet. Companies including Amazon, Target, J&J and DBS along with non-profits including the World Bank, UNICEF, Girl Effect, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation leverage Quilt to better connect with their customers.
His entrepreneurial journey started in 2012 and now includes scaling multiple startups to double digit millions in revenue and raising more than $200M in venture capital. His first venture in 2012 was with Jana Mobile as employee number one where he moved from the US to Singapore to set up Asia, built 100 plus telco and channel partnerships, and a complete pan Asian team.
This came after almost a decade at American Express in New York, in various global leadership positions across the business - on both the corporate and travel side. In his last role at American Express, he was responsible for managing and growing the largest 150 clients of American Express as well as for acquiring new direct and channel businesses with a team size of 3,000 that spanned the globe. Some of his key clients included IBM, J&J, Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, and McKinsey. Supported by high performing teams, Anurag's businesses contributed more than $20B in top line growth. Anurag has a Master’s in Organizational Development from Bowling Green State University and is a Harvard Business School alumnus.