Ketul Acharya

Chief Operating Officer , Development Sector - Education, Employability, Employment, Healthcare, Economic Development, CSR

BANGALORE, India

25 years of professional journey in building and scaling sustainable social enterprises with a focus on Education, Employability, Employment, Healthcare & Development Advisory - Jobs & livelihood creation, Tertiary education & TVET, Access to basic quality education & 21st century skills, Systemic & policy reforms for youth and future of work, Economic Development & CSR strategy & execution

Contact Ketul Acharya
Area of Expertise:
  • Private Sector, Social Enterprise, Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Social, Education, Gender, Youth, Child
  • Trade, Finance, Economics, Cooperation, Global
Professional Experience:

Passionate, persuasive and outcome driven development professional with a proven ability to identify & analyse opportunities, develop strategies & ensure smooth execution with a track record of fueling accelerated replicable scale, impact, systemic change and thought leadership in a multi-location/cultural environment.

Front-led multiple impact creating initiatives:

Enhancing the quality of Education & learning outcomes

Initiatives driving access to education & basic literacy skills, enhancement of quality of learning outcomes required for future by mainstreaming digital learning systems, engaging content & training of teachers using innovative pedagogy & collaborating with various stakeholders – Education department of Government, Govt & Private schools, Community/Parents & Expert institutions.

Jobs & Livelihood opportunities through TVET & 21st century skills initiatives

Skills for Jobs & Entrepreneurship (School Dropouts, Undergraduates & Graduates)
Upskilling/Reskilling for career advancement, reemployment & redeployment in different roles
Strategic partnerships / Collaboration / Engagement for co-creation & execution with/for
Government: Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, National Skill Development Corporation, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Ministry of Rural Development, and several other relevant State Governments & ministries
Industry Linkage/ Employers: Large, Medium & Small-Scale Employers across 20 + sectors / 100+ Job roles
Community/ Parents: Non-Government Organisations/ Not for Profit organisations working for development of Youth & with communities in general.
Funding/Investment: From Corporates (Under CSR), Government (Sponsorship/ Grants) and Learners/Employers

Building Digital Jobs & learning Platform

Identifying the core issues/problems,
conceptualizing & finalizing the goal, objectives as well as initiatives to address the problems, building the core team, collaborating with product, technology, business & support teams to ensure research, design, user feedback & run pilots & experiments required to scale the impact.

CSR conceptualization & implementation for Corporates/Foundations – Driving
-Income enhancement initiatives for Farm & Non-farm sector
-Access to basic education, digital literacy, 21st century skills and ICT in primary and secondary education.
-Job readiness, career counselling/guidance & skilling/upskilling initiatives leading to jobs & self-employment opportunities.
-Access to basic Healthcare & Health improvement as well as environment & area development initiatives

Driving End to End management of Govt, multilateral agencies and CSR funds from planning utilization, allocating & managing the utilisation same, submitting the utilisation reports.

Healthcare – Implementation of Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission of HIV aids through CSR funding in addition to initiatives leading to general well-being of needy people.

Economic Development and growth through Cluster Development Initiatives
- Working with Industrial clusters with a focus on SMEs to help enhance their revenue, productivity, technology & infrastructure upgradation, cost reduction & capacity building initiatives using United Nations approach on Cluster Development resulting in to jobs & livelihood creation as well as overall economic development.

Part of formal/informal groups for policy advocacy for youth development, jobs & livelihood creation & digital skilling platforms.

Experience in internal audit for identified SOPs/SLAs & ensuring compliance & reporting for exceptions, if any with plans for improvement

Education:

1) Post graduate diploma in Business Management (Gold Medal)
2) Bachelor's of Science
3)Advance diploma in Systems Management from NIIT
4) International Trade certification programme from Global Network
5) In addition, over last 20 years have attended many leadership development programmes

Affiliations and Achievements:

1)International Organisations Management, University of Geneva through Coursera
2) Digital Transformation for Leaders from IIM, Bangalore, India
3) Communication for Leaders of Tomorrow from IIM, Ahmedabad, India
4) Lead Beyond Change: Growth into Future training for CXOs & Leaders by LemmaTree, Temasek @ Singapore
5) Cluster Development Managers Program conducted by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) & EDI
6) Former Member of the Peer Learning Group focusing on development of Education/Vocational Skills in India & Africa

Available for:

  • Consulting assignments
  • Job opportunities
  • Being headhunted – make me an offer

Years of Experience:

More than 20 years

Highest Qualification:

Masters

Languages:

English, Hindi, Gujarati

Nationality:

India

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