Dr. Sarika Kulkarni

Sarika is a Founder & Chief Executive Director of Raah Foundation (an NGO that supports Nation building by addressing UN SDGs for the tribal indigenous communities of western India) and Raah Creative Design (a social business that provides market linkages to tribal art products).

She has a doctorate in management, a postgraduate degree in CSR from AIT (Bangkok), and a post-graduate qualification in social impact strategy from UPenn (US).

She started her career as a professor at leading business schools in Mumbai. She quit to become a full time entrepreneur and started and scaled up an ITES business that employed over 500 people. After successfully exiting a decade later, Sarika co-founded Raah foundation in 2011 to spend the rest of her life in development sector. She later also started Raah Creations, a social business that provides market linkages to the tribal art products.

Passionate about climate change, water and sustainable livelihoods, Raah Foundation focusses on these three thematic areas and works exclusively with the tribal indigenous people of Maharashtra. Raah Foundation has become one of the fastest growing organisations with several leading corporates and philanthropists supporting its different projects. Raah creations runs a store in Mumbai and has been short-listed by Harvard business school as the top 50 social businesses in handicraft sector.

She has written three books in management, multiple articles, and research papers. A regular speaker at the different forums she has addressed several conferences in India and abroad. She has won several awards and recognitions and serves on important national and international councils and think tanks.