Kartik Desai is Founder & CEO of Desai &Associates, is considered a pioneer of social finance in India, with leadership roles at four leading impact investing institutions, advising investors, donors, corporates, policymakers and academics and demonstrating a track record of successful impact investments and exits in the last 15 years. He has almost two decades of experience in investment banking, private equity, venture capital, social entrepreneurship, development finance and economic policy. Kartik is a recognized thought leader, active writer and speaker, Visiting Faculty at Ashoka University, Ambedkar University, ISDM and the Naropa Fellowship, and guest lecturer at international programs including at Oxford University and New York University.

Kartik was most recently Partner at KOIS, a global innovative finance firm with asset management and advisory businesses focused on impact investment and blended finance across (i) education, skilling and employment, (ii) healthcare and (ii) climate and sustainability, leading the firm’s advisory business across Asia. He founded and led Asha Impact for 7 years, one of India’s pre-eminent multi-family offices and think tanks focused on impact investment and policy advisory, and previously was a Vice President at Lok Capital and Aavishkaar, two pioneering funds that helped establish the asset class in India. Kartik started his career in the United States as consultant with organisations like BTS and the Rockefeller Foundation, worked briefly in Africa with the UNDP and moved to India in 2005 to join Merrill Lynch in its investment banking and then private equity divisions, before moving full-time into social finance in 2008.

Kartik has served on the boards of several high growth impact enterprises across sectors over his career, as a three-time elected Board Member of the Impact Investors Council, as founder and mentor to NGOs in the urban inclusion, digital media and mental health space and an active angel investor in social enterprises working in remote or underserved parts of India. He has been selected for Government of India initiatives such as the PM’s Champions of Change and Parliamentarians and Innovators for India and is an active speaker and contributor to professional seminars, education institutions and government consultations on development finance. He graduated in 2002 with a BSc Economics (Finance and Management) from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and in 2004 with Masters in International Affairs (International Finance & Business) from SIPA, Columbia University and is currently based out of New Delhi, India.

Nitin Desai is an Indian economist and international civil servant. He was Under Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations from 1992 to 2003 and Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, and Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India from 1987-1990. He is widely credited as one of initiators of the concept of 'Sustainable Development' in the landmark report 'Our Common Future' and through his substantive work at the UN from the Rio to Johannesburg Summits. Since his retirement from the United Nations, Mr. Desai has been active on a number of causes and served in various senior leadership posts including as the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on Internet Governance, member of the Indian PM’s Council on Climate Change and National Security Advisory Board, co-chair of the Indo-UK Roundtable, Chairman of Board of Trustees of Oxfam International and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. He remains active in global climate governance and research with leadership roles at institutions such as the Foundation for Ecological Security, The Energy and Resources Institute, Shakti Foundation and writes a column for Business Standard. Mr. Desai completed his Bachelors from the University of Bombay in 1962 and earned a Masters in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1965.