Our Team

Staff

Madhu Sridhar, President & CEO - madhu@apusa.org

Madhu Sridhar is the President and CEO of Akshaya Patra USA since 2007. She brings in over 25 years of non-profit experience. Prior to joining Akshaya Patra, Sridhar served for four years as the President of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts with 60 chapters spread throughout the state. In January 2008, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts appointed Sridhar to the Commonwealth Corps, an eleven member commission he initiated that engages Massachusetts residents of all ages and backgrounds to rebuild communities. She is former Commissioner for the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, which aims to provide a permanent, effective voice for women across Massachusetts. She has served on several boards including ACLU, WGBH and Andover Community for Education. She has worked as the Director of Actuarial Department for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and as a consultant for Peat Marwick & Mitchell and New England Mutual Life Insurance Company. She attended Miranda House, Delhi and Delhi School of Economics.

Suma Adapala, Director, Corporate Development - suma@apusa.org

Suma brings over 10 years of corporate experience, working recently as a Vice President in Morgan Stanley's Technology Division. Her roles ranged from responsibility of enterprise-wide global operations of several hundred database servers to product management of the inception, launch and adoption of an innovative product for on-demand creation of test environments and most recently led the operations of a hundred member global off-shore team to provide Quality Assurance process. She was one of first ten recipients of Morgan Stanley’s seed capital award, “Pay It Forward” Challenge, an initiative to tap into entrepreneurial talents of its employees to create a philanthropic legacy.  Suma received her B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo. In her free time Suma enjoys Meditating, Skiing and Bollywood movies & music.

Piyali Dutta, Director, Chapters and Events - piyali@apusa.org

Piyali brings over 16 years of corporate financial sales and marketing experience. Prior to joining Akshaya Patra, she worked at Putnam Investments, MFS Investments and Hartford Life Insurance. She was in charge of a $40million territory and her roles included sales and marketing of financial products, developing new and managing existing client relationships, along with event planning to increase territory sales. Piyali was a multifunctional manager recognized for researching and developing innovative marketing strategies that drive sales, build high quality brand reputation, and increase customer loyalty. She is has a B.A from SUNY Buffalo.
 

Kerry Markey, Director, Grassroot Development and Media Relations - kerry@apusa.org

Kerry recently received a M.A. in International Development and Social Change from Clark University.  She has traveled extensively and worked with numerous development organizatons throughout Cental America, South America, and Africa; most recently returning from several months in Tamil Nadu, India.  Kerry has worked in marketing and publications roles for the past several years.
 

Krista McCarthy, Executive Assistant - krista@apusa.org

Krista joined the team as the Executive Assistant in March of this year.   In this position, she provides administrative support to the President, maintains the Salesforce.com database, and completes essential development operations functions.  Krista graduated from Northeastern University last May with a BA in Political Science.  She has completed three internships in human rights non-profits and in a congressional office, where she learned essential skills in non-profit development, administration, and operations.

Board of Directors

Desh Deshpande, Chairman   

Desh Deshpande is the Chairman of Akshaya Patra USA since 2008. He is a successful serial entrepreneur and a philanthropist. In 2010, President Obama appointed Dr. Deshpande to the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship as a co-chair to develop policies that foster entrepreneurship, drive economic growth and create jobs. He is the President of Sparta Group LLC, and Chairman of Sycamore Networks, Tejas Networks, A123 Systems, and HiveFire. Prior to co-founding Sycamore Networks, Dr. Deshpande was the founder and chairman of Cascade Communications Corp. Dr. Deshpande serves as a member of the MIT Corporation, and his generous support has made possible MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation.
 
Dr. Deshpande holds a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology,Chennai, India, an M.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and Ph.D. in Data Communications from Queens University in Canada. He is involved in several non-profit initiatives including MIT, TiE, and the Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox in India.

C. C. Das, Director
The Akshaya Patra Foundation, Bangalore, India

Prabhakar "PK" Kalavacherla, Member
International Accounting Standards Board
 

Advisory Board

Deepak Chopra, Founder, The Chopra Center for Wellbeing

Narayana Murthy, Founder and Chairman, Infosys Technologies

Nitin Nohria, Dean, Harvard Business School

Fareed Zakaria, Author, journalist and Host of CNN’s “GPS”