COVID-19 Response: Support Manual Scavengers and Their Families
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Team

Staff

Samit Aich

Chief Executive Officer

Patrick D’Addario

Senior Financial Analyst

Gopal B.

Assistant Manager – Finance & Compliance

Russell deLucia

Innovation Director and Principal Founder

Lexi Doolittle

Social Enterprise Manager

Elizabeth Friend

Managing Director

Kavin Gokul

Project Development Officer

Will Knowland

Senior Energy and Environment Analyst

Avinash Krishnamurthy

Chief Program Officer

Michael Lesser

Finance Director and Senior Economist

Emma Marks

Program Coordinator

Rohinee Ram Shashidhar

Storyteller

Earl Stephens

Business Operations Manager

Shashikanth Subramanya

Assistant Manager Project Innovation

Board of Directors

US Board of Directors

Robin Brenner

Board Member and Clerk

Russell deLucia

Board Member and President

Somak Ghosh

Board Member

Michael Lesser

Board Member and Treasurer

Marco Palmieri

Board Member

Scott Sklar

Board Member

India Board of Directors

Veena Joshi

Director

Somak Ghosh

Board Chair

Dr. B Gangaiah

Board Member

Advisors

Andrew Barnett

Advisor

Nikhil Desai

Advisor

Interested in Joining Our Team?

Visit our careers page to view open potions and internship opportunities.

S3IDF

Samit Aich

Samit P Aich is the CEO of the Small Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund (www.s3idf.org), since early 2016. He has over 25 years of extensive experience in international development, management advisory consulting and also in the corporate sector. His earlier corporate work was associated with Indian multinational conglomerates like the Tata Group, Arvind Mills and Sify Technologies. 

 

Prior to joining S3IDF, Samit spent more than 10 years with Greenpeace India, including about 8 years as its Executive Director and was instrumental in making the organization not just financially self-reliant but also a prominent environmental campaigning player in the country. He was a key member of Greenpeace International’s Global Leadership Team (GLT) in Amsterdam, the highest-level strategic body within Greenpeace worldwide. He also sat on the International Steering Committee of the Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency, hosted by the International Budget Partnership, Washington, DC. 

 

Samit sits on advisory boards of select non-profits and is also a member on the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) subcommittee on CSR and Affirmative Action. Earlier, he had been a regular invitee for four consecutive years to the Indian Union Finance Ministers’ Pre-Budget Consultations at New Delhi as a social sector expert to input into country-level budgets. He has also been invited and deposed in front of Indian Parliamentary Standing Committees of the 15th Lok Sabha, on Energy and Agriculture matters. He is and has been a prominent speaker, panellist, observer and moderator on various high level national and international fora including at the United Nations COP 11-Convention on Biological Diversity (UNFCCC-CBD-COP), Social Capital Markets (SOCAP), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and many others. He has been widely interviewed on national and international media, including BBC London, NDTV, India Today TV, German TV network DW, Financial Times New York and several other prominent media houses.

 

His personal pursuits include practicing the ancient meditation technique-Vipassana, exploring a myriad of interests including Buddhist philosophy, world history, environmentalism, development economics, campaigning and cookery. He is a professionally certified baker, and an amateur collector of vintage mechanical watches, clocks and fountain pens. Samit is a sporadic blogger on contemporary socio-economic issues ranging from entrepreneurship, developmental issues, livelihoods and non-profit governance. He is associated with several prominent business schools as guest faculty and conducts professional coaching and strategic advisory interventions at the senior management level.

 

Samit has several post-graduate qualifications – he has an M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences and also an MBA in Marketing. In addition, he has studied Strategic Management at the Harvard Business School in Massachusetts, US.

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Patrick D’Addario

Patrick has over 35 years of experience in the development, finance, execution, management, and evaluation of climate change mitigation, environment and resource efficiency, and climate change adaptation proposals, projects, and programs. He has worked as an executive for and consultant to government, private sector, and non-governmental organizations. Patrick has field experience in more than 20 countries, beginning with his presidency of the International Fund for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, through numerous projects supported by the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) and myriad assignments as President of the LaGuardia Foundation. His recent work for Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Institute for Industrial Productivity has focused specifically on facilitating finance to scale-up industrial energy efficiency projects. Patrick holds a Master of Public Affairs from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Arts from St. John’s University.
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Gopal B.

Gopal has worked in financial and accounting capacities for close to 20 years within the international development and nonprofit sectors. His professional capabilities include monitoring company funds, managing organization accounts and creating and disseminating financial reports. Gopal has extensive non-governmental sector experience with organizations such as the Rastriya Madhyamika Shiksha Abhiyana (RMSA), the Karnataka State Project Office, and the Public Affairs Center. Prior to joining S3IDF, Gopal was the Regional Finance Officer for RMSA, funded by the DFID, with a wide range of fiscal responsibilities integral to organizational accounting and administration. Gopal holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Gulbarga University and speaks English, Hindi and Kannada.
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Russell deLucia

Russell J. deLucia has nearly 50 years of experience in the areas of development finance, infrastructure development, and natural resource allocation. He has worked with bilateral and multilateral development institutions, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and International Finance Corporation (IFC) in a variety of roles, such as team leader or specialist expert. Previously, Russell founded and managed a consulting firm, deLucia and Associates, which advised development institutions, governments, private firms, NGOs, and others on policy, project design, and implementation. He wrote The Energy Dimensions of Poverty for the first IFAD World Poverty Study and served as an Editorial Advisor for Natural Resources Forum, writing several articles for the Special Issue on “Small-Scale Natural Resources and Related Infrastructure Development.” Russell holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Engineering from Harvard University and a B.S. in Engineering from Manhattan College.
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Lexi Doolittle

Lexi has worked in the social development sector for close to a decade, exploring and addressing a range of community challenges with a focus on programmatic efficacy and market-based solutions to poverty alleviation. Her most recent work with S3IDF has centered on micro/small-scale entrepreneur support in India, and clean energy enterprise financing in Central America, the Caribbean, Cambodia and Myanmar. Lexi brings to S3IDF her prior experiences in evaluating the qualities of sustainable at-risk youth organizations across Brazil, South Africa and Vietnam, assessing the influence of aid on economic development in Palestine, and her work as the Teen Education Coordinator for the Jordan Boys & Girls Club in Chelsea, MA.  Lexi is an active spokeswoman for S3IDF, presenting at numerous conferences and publishing articles on various platforms. Lexi holds a B.A. from the University of Richmond with a double major in Global Studies and Arabic, and is pursuing Graduate Certificates from Northeastern University in Nonprofit Sector, Philanthropy & Social Change, and Technological Entrepreneurship.
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Elizabeth Friend

Elizabeth has over a decade of nonprofit management and international development experience planning, implementing, and evaluating market-based solutions to poverty. She brings a range of experience from on-the-ground field data collection and analysis to hands-on small business development to organizational strategic planning. Prior to her work with S3IDF, Elizabeth served as International Director of Village Forward where she managed international programming and played a central role in developing operational capacity and enterprise expansion strategies. Elizabeth has presented at numerous conferences and forums on energy poverty and small-scale enterprise financing and development. Elizabeth is currently pursuing a M.S. Finance from Northeastern University and she holds a M.A. in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University as well as a B.A. in Lead­ership Studies from the University of Richmond.
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Kavin Gokul

Kavin has hands-on experience working as a Consultant on Sanitation and Waste management under flagship Swachh Bharat Mission’s Young professional anchored by TATA Trust and Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in Salem District of Tamil Nadu. He has expertise in building relationships with various stakeholders within government agency and civil society organizations and corporates. Over the year, he also considerable practical know-how at leading a group in achieving targets, Capacity building, planning, and execution of large scale campaigns. He has completed a Master’s degree in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai.

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Will Knowland

Will has four decades of professional experience in energy, environment, and development assessment, policy, practice, and capacity building, including 35 years focused on developing countries. Initially trained in ecology and active in organizing the first Earth Day celebrations in 1970; Will began working on energy and environment challenges with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the mid-1970s. He has assisted USAID, foundations, multilateral banks, several Asian governments, and a number of Asian and international companies to pioneer innovative and successful environmental management policies and practices. His experience includes design, implementation, and evaluation of projects and programs in environmental assessment, resource valuation and planning, creating and strengthening institutions for energy and environmental management, creating collaborative public-private partnerships, and environmental governance systems from local to international levels. Will holds an MA of International Relations from John Hopkins University and a BA in Environmental Studies from Antioch College.

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Avinash Krishnamurthy

Avinash has extensive experience in the water, energy, solid waste management, and small infrastructure sectors and in project conceptualization, design and implementation. In addition to his role at S3IDF, he serves as Director and Project Leader of Biome Environmental Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a consultancy he cofounded to provide sustainable land use practice and development solutions in urban and rural contexts. Avinash has worked in the information technology sector with Infosys Technologies Limited where he managed international client relationships and led teams. Avinash speaks English, French, Hindi, and Kannada, and holds a B.Engineering from the University of Mysore with a specialization in hydro-energy.

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Michael Lesser

Michael Lesser, an economist, has over thirty years of experience in infrastructure development and natural resources management in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. He has consulted for international, national and local agencies as well as private clients. His extensive energy sector work has covered all conventional and renewable energy sources and related environmental issues, including rural electrification, pricing/tariffs studies, and system planning and regulation. He has also worked on drinking water and sanitation issues, as well as in forestry and agriculture. He holds a B.S. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Emma Marks

Emma has experience working in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors. Before coming to S3IDF, she worked in marketing for a Boston-based Agtech startup. She also has experience in community development and teaching ESL. She coordinated and oversaw programming for an intercollegiate student group in Worcester, MA aimed to increase students’ positive perception of the city and collaborated to plan capacity-building events, including an annual community think tank and an international mural festival. She has written about issues in food security and sustainable consumption for FoodTank, an online publication pushing for food system change. Emma holds a B.A. in International Development and Social Change from Clark University where she designed a concentration in Environmental Protection and Food Systems and is currently pursuing a dual M.A. in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development at American University’s School of International Service and the UN University for Peace.
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Rohinee Ram Shashidhar

Rohinee has around 8 years of experience in communication. She holds a Master degree in Media and Advertising from Wellingkar University, Mumbai. She has handled the communication, content, strategized PR plans and campaigns for various clientele during her stint with public relations agency. Post her agency days, she setup a boutique communication firm, where holistic communication services were offered exclusively to the startups. The true calling to work in social sector came in the form of The Akshaya Para Foundation, where she worked as Communication Manager, handling media relations, government relations, strategizing IPs and managing the crisis communication. Before joining S3IDF, Rohinee worked with Consulate General of Israel to South India as Public Diplomacy Officer.

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Earl Stephens

Earl has over 15 years of administrative experience working in the public and private sectors. He has worked on teams addressing office concerns for companies such as Google, Intersystems, and Lois Paul & Partners. He has been a technical director, personal assistant, facilities team lead, a business development researcher, IT troubleshooter, vendor manager, and a general jack of all trades. Most recently he was Business Manager/Executive Assistant for Vell Executive Search. He joins our team with a great desire to help people find success in their goals and to achieve their dreams. Earl received a BA in Theater in 2002 from Alfred University where he focused on technical theater and scenic design.
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Shashikanth Subramanya

Shashikanth carries the passion to work in the development space since his exposure to the tribals inside the Kali Tiger Reserve, 8 years back. While he was working with an Industrial Hydraulics company doing Sales and business development, he and a team of volunteers helped construct toilets for tribals in the Kali Tiger Reserve and physically challenged villagers of Chamarajanagar in Karnataka. He later quit his job to stay with the tribals of the Deccapuram village inside Borra Reserve Forest for 6 months, working to report their livelihood challenges to then Andhra Pradesh government during 2015. This and other travels during the time, helped him to realise that farmers (both rural and tribal) in the country are going through tough times and they need infrastructural and capital support to do better agriculture. For which he put a team together to start Directsubzi, an agri-tech start-up, prior to joining S3IDF. To have spent the last 4 years focussed on working with the farmers at the grass roots level and in the rural space across India, he realises the importance of innovation in this particular space. He believes that as a part of the Project Innovations team at S3IDF, his work can be the necessary game changer.
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Robin Brenner

Robin Brenner is a businesswoman with a career encompassing a diverse set of experiences in education, organizational development and operations, and high-tech manufacturing. Prior to joining S3IDF’s Board of Directors, she was the owner of Billie Brenner, Ltd., a boutique bath and design showroom. Previously, she was a manager at Hewlett-Packard and taught in Boston Public Schools, notably in the South End and Lower Roxbury neighborhoods. Robin holds an M.B.A. from Yale University’s School of Management, a Certification in Early Childhood Education and Teaching from Bank Street College of Education, and a B.A. in History and Architectural and Art History from the University of Madison-Wisconsin.
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Russell deLucia

Russell J. deLucia has nearly 50 years of experience in the areas of development finance, infrastructure development, and natural resource allocation. He has worked with bilateral and multilateral development institutions, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and International Finance Corporation (IFC) in a variety of roles, such as team leader or specialist expert. Previously, Russell founded and managed a consulting firm, deLucia and Associates, which advised development institutions, governments, private firms, NGOs, and others on policy, project design, and implementation. He wrote The Energy Dimensions of Poverty for the first IFAD World Poverty Study and served as an Editorial Advisor for Natural Resources Forum, writing several articles for the Special Issue on “Small-Scale Natural Resources and Related Infrastructure Development.” Russell holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Engineering from Harvard University and a B.S. in Engineering from Manhattan College.
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Somak Ghosh

Somak, an expert in development finance and energy, currently serves as Managing Partner at Contrarian Capital India Partners in Mumbai, India. Previously, he led the Responsible Banking Initiative at YES Bank, which aimed to adopt a triple bottom line ethos and reach out to underserved groups with customized banking products. He has been instrumental in reviving interest in financing renewable energy projects in India amongst professionals in the commercial banking industry and has participated in various international forums focusing on clean development mechanisms, project financing, renewable energy financing, and sustainable infrastructure. Somak holds an M.B.A. specializing in Finance from FMS Delhi and a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Mumbai.
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Michael Lesser

Michael Lesser, an economist, has over thirty years of experience in infrastructure development and natural resources management in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. He has consulted for international, national and local agencies as well as private clients. His extensive energy sector work has covered all conventional and renewable energy sources and related environmental issues, including rural electrification, pricing/tariffs studies, and system planning and regulation. He has also worked on drinking water and sanitation issues, as well as in forestry and agriculture. He holds a B.S. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Marco Palmieri

Marco serves as President of DECK Associates LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in engineering, accounting, research, and professional services. He has also served as an educator and administrator for the New Haven Public Schools system, planning and supervising professional growth activities for more than 2000 employees. As a member of the superintendent’s Cabinet, he served as the system’s representative with universities and agencies on the state, federal, and local levels with various collaborative initiatives. He has extensive experience serving on boards for a number of nonprofit, civic, and professional organizations. Marco holds Graduate degrees in Education and Administration from Southern Connecticut State University and a B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers University.
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Scott Sklar

Scott, President of The Stella Group, Ltd., has extensive experience facilitating distributed clean energy projects for commercial, industrial, international, and military applications and specializes in blending technologies and financing for projects, as well as assisting companies to scale-up market penetration with a focus on standardized, modular, web-enabled, and inter-operable systems. He also teaches courses on sustainable energy at George Washington University and Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE). Scott served as Executive Director of two national trade associations concurrently and was Political Director of The Solar Lobby, an advocacy group founded by the big nine US environmental organizations. He coauthored two books: The Forbidden Fuel: A History of Power Alcohol, and a Consumer Guide to Solar Energy. Scott holds an M.A. in Mathematics and B.A. in International Affairs, both from Washington University.
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Veena Joshi

Veena Joshi has over 20 years experience in program development and management with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. One of the main learning areas she has worked with has been program evaluation using different methods (self, joint, independent) and launched by different levels of oversight agencies including Swiss Parliament. Prior to her work with the SADC, Veena began her research career with Tata Energy Research Institute TERI, New Delhi by focusing on cooking energy issues and Building Science. In 10 years at TERI, she led national and international action research projects in the areas of rural and renewable energy, notable among them were an Indo-Canada project on Women as Managers of Household Energy Systems and Evaluation of National Programme on Improved Cook Stoves. Veena holds a Ph.D. in Physics: Air Pollution and a M.SC in Physics: Nuclear and Solid State Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology and a B.Sc. in Physics, Mathematics from Karnataka University.
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Somak Ghosh

Somak, an expert in development finance and energy, currently serves as Managing Partner at Contrarian Capital India Partners in Mumbai, India. Previously, he led the Responsible Banking Initiative at YES Bank, which aimed to adopt a triple bottom line ethos and reach out to underserved groups with customized banking products. He has been instrumental in reviving interest in financing renewable energy projects in India amongst professionals in the commercial banking industry and has participated in various international forums focusing on clean development mechanisms, project financing, renewable energy financing, and sustainable infrastructure. Somak holds an M.B.A. specializing in Finance from FMS Delhi and a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Mumbai.

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Dr. B Gangaiah

Dr B. Gangaiah, currently Member Secretary of AP Planning Board is an Indian Economic Service(IES) Officer of 1980 batch. He has a PhD in Economics and an M. Phil in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. During his career, he worked in several Government of India Ministries of Agriculture, Industries(SME), Rural Development, Urban Development and Planning Commission in various capacities. He also worked on deputation with DFID and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded health projects in India. He worked with the Futures Group International a US-based Think Tank on Health Economics during his deputation outside the Government.
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Andrew Barnett

Andrew is an economist with over 35 years of experience in energy, technology policy, and economic development. He is a Director at The Policy Practice Ltd., a consulting firm specializing in energy, research, and technology policy in developing countries. He has held positions at the Science Policy Research Unit and the Institute of Development Studies (both at the University of Sussex) and was the energy specialist at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada. He has advised a range of organizations, including the Department for International Development (DFID), the Shell Foundation, the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Assistance Committee (DAC), and the IDRC. Additionally, he was a Specialist Advisor in both the British House of Lords and the House of Commons Select Committees in relation to science, technology, and aid effectiveness. From December 1996 to March 2007, he was a member of a group reviewing the World Bank’s Trust-Funded programs. He is an Honorary Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit of the University of Sussex, a member of the Editorial Board of World Development, and a Board Member of the HEDON Household Energy Network, and was a Board Member of the Overseas Development Institute. He holds a M.A. in Development Economics and a B.A., both from the University of Sussex.
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Nikhil Desai

Nikhil, an energy economist, has extensive experience in energy and environmental policy research and planning for developing countries and in US electric utility planning, fuel procurement, environmental compliance and legal/regulatory issues. Nikhil worked with the World Bank as a consultant for several decades and is regularly involved in research and writing on strategic international development issues and options for energy industries, financial institutions, and governmental organizations. He also works on climate change mitigation policies and actions, concentrating on energy efficiency and renewable fuels projects.
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