Parvathi Menon, Founder, CEO

Parvathi set up Innovation Alchemy in 2009 to bring together her passion for development challenges and a strong belief in the power of innovation and systems thinking to be the critical change ingredients. With a background in Communication, eLearning, Programme Management, Business Development and Consulting, she applies a broad spectrum of business, entrepreneurial and technology expertise to emerging market challenges.

Over her 15-year career in the corporate and entrepreneurial space, Parvathi has built a repertoire of knowledge in designing and implementing innovation solutions for clients such as: ITC eChoupal, Tata Fertilizers, Samsung, Wipro, Marico Innovation Foundation, FEM Sustainable Solutions, IFC South Asia and the World Bank group.  She is recognized for her strategic facilitation skills, capacity to cull out fundamental insights, deep knowledge of the social enterprise space in India and ability to build meaningful collaborations with people and organizations in the innovation ecosystem.

Her recent work in applied innovation includes facilitating the 2011 Development Marketplace Programme for the World Bank in low Income States of India; accelerating social enterprises towards scale under a collaboration with the Marico Innovation Foundation; applying innovation to help facilitate business clusters in India to grow in partnership with FICCI and the National Innovation Council.

Parvathi has a Masters in Communication from the Hyderabad Central University and is an alumnus of the Management Programme for Women Entrepreneurs at the IIM Bangalore. She blogs at http://innovationalchemy.com/blog/ and is an active user and advocate of social media tools. She can be found on twitter @parvathimenon

A more detailed profile on Linkedin.

Namita Vikas, Specialist Consultant for Communication Strategy & CSR Projects

Namita has over 19 years of experience and has held several Leadership positions with National & Global organizations such as the Confederation of Indian Industry, (CII), Microsoft India and Marico, an FMCG Indian multinational.

She is currently associated with the Marico Innovation Foundation as Principal Consultant, and her role involves helping the Foundation formulate strategies for catalyzing Innovation and implementing them in line with its vision and objectives. She is also involved in guiding philanthropic initiatives by the promoters of the Group.

She has led large multi-disciplinary teams and provided strategic and conceptual leadership on Communication Strategies and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). She has extensive experience in formulating program strategies, architecting, planning, implementation and management of projects.

Besides a Bachelor degree in Economics, diploma in Business Management from the Mumbai University, India, she has diploma in Advanced Management and Leadership in CSR from Svenska Institutet (Swedish Institute of Management).  She is a certified Lead Auditor for ISO 9000-2001 and has attended several professional development courses in India and Europe.

Aditya Tejas, Project Management & Research

An engineer by degree – and a social development student by heart.

While at college he attended a 2 day transformation workshop conducted by People First, a coaching and training organization. It opened out the area of transformative work for him – and how’s people could be impacted with skills and capability building. It also helped him understand his own orientation in this field.

After the workshop he joined People First and eventually started leading teams. Over a period of time he started training in workshops, lead the training team and became part of core leadership team at People first Chennai. His experience for about 18 months with this organisation was challenging, inspiring and gave him a new perspective to his life.

Though he pursued an Engineering degree it never suppressed his inclination to social issues. Intent on gaining first hand understanding behind oppression and poverty in India (especially at the tribal belts) he took on several study trips along with like minded friends into interior villages while still in college. As a result of these trips and meeting up with leaders of organisations which addressed these issues, his passion to build awareness in tribal belts through informal education grew.

His work now at Innovation Alchemy helps him see the impact and relevance of innovation in addressing social issues and how sustainable, scalable results can be achieved through innovative business models.

Mansi Reddy, Research & Communication

A graduate of the University of Waterloo’s Honours Sociology Program, Mansi has always been intrigued by Social Issues. Courses on Religion, Social Theory, Poverty and Social Development, Woman’s Studies, Business Ethics and Social Policy helped cultivate a social consciousness. A keen interest in being a contributory citizen of society developed during college and solidified after a 6 month internship with the ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) center, an assessment and research based nonprofit in New Delhi. Working with ASER, first as an intern and later as a Regional Coordinator, allowed her to travel through rural India and exposed her to the many challenges of India’s education system. This experience inspired Mansi to pursue a career in Social Development.

With experience in education based nonprofits, her interests now include Environment, Woman’s Issues, Health care and Urban Planning, among other social impact areas.  Mansi also has experience working in the Corporate world and has interned with Envirosell, a Market Research firm in Manhattan and Titan Industries in Bangalore. Her interests include travel, art, music and media, food and gastronomy, popular culture, current events, religion, health and lifestyle.

Her desire to make a meaningful difference became her professional focus and finds a home at the Innovation Alchemy Hub. Her role as a Research Associate exposes her to a variety of innovation challenges faced by for-profit and nonprofit organizations who seek to create high impact and provides a challenging platform to make a positive contribution to through research, writing and insights.

Kokila Vani, Office Administration

With 8 years of experience in the field of Office Administration, Kokila is the efficient back bone of the Innovation Alchemy Hub and Office. She has worked in administrative functions across Consulting and Customer Service firms, giving her a wide exposure to managing Office environments, Vendor relationships and Hub facilities.