Priya Naik’s interest in social entrepreneurship began when she worked as a researcher at the Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA. Armed with a graduate degree in economics from Yale University and another in public policy from the University of Michigan, Naik boasts of a career that is an interesting fusion of on-the-ground grassroots solutions and enterprise and strategic consulting experience with established companies. After co-founding the Spark Group, an education company that delivered affordable education to low-income communities, Naik set up Samhita Social Ventures in 2009 to bring together companies, donor organisations and high net worth individuals to collaborate with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and social enterprises. Samhita helps companies shape their CSR strategy, facilitate program implementation, run cause-related marketing campaigns and assess the impact created. The company, which is fully supported by Infosys co-founder NS Raghavan, counts several leading corporate names among its client list.

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