Development organisations work on some of the most complex challenges in society: livelihoods, education, health, gender, governance, climate, rural development and more. But good intentions alone are not enough to run effective organisations.

This session will explore why management matters in the social sector. Drawing from the experience of leading and building development organisations, the discussion will look at the kinds of organisational, people, financial, and strategic challenges that social sector leaders face.

Speaker details

Achintya Kumar Ghosh is a development practitioner with over four decades of experience in water resources development and livelihood promotion in India and beyond. A B.Tech graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, he has also been trained at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, and the City University of New York (CUNY).

He began his career with OXFAM before joining PRADAN, where he served as Executive Director from 1997 to 2002. During his tenure, he deepened PRADAN’s work on Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) as a foundation for smallholder livelihoods — an approach he has carried across his career. His work has extended beyond India to Ethiopia and Kenya, reflecting a sustained engagement with livelihood questions in diverse agrarian contexts.

After PRADAN, Ghosh founded KABIL in 2012, and served as its Executive Director since inception until November 2025. KABIL works in partnership with government agencies, NGOs, and community-based organisations to provide hands-on technical support for rural livelihood promotion, with a particular focus on natural resource-based livelihoods for poor households.

Widely recognised as a pioneer in development and social change, Ghosh represents a generation of IIT-trained professionals who chose grassroots development over mainstream careers — a tradition closely associated with PRADAN’s founding ethos. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Kharagpur in 2020 for his contribution to rural development.

Neelima Khetan is a development sector leader with over three decades of experience spanning nonprofit practice, corporate social responsibility, and academic leadership. She is currently a Partner at Nous Consultants, Visiting Fellow at Brookings India, and Visiting Faculty at Chandragupta Institute of Management Patna.

Neelima began her career at PRADAN and spent the formative years of her professional life at Seva Mandir in Rajasthan, where she eventually served as Chief Executive for over a decade — leading nearly 300 professionals and 1,000 village volunteers across health, education, livelihoods, and women’s empowerment.

She subsequently held senior corporate roles at Coca-Cola India and Vedanta Limited, where as Group CSR Head she directed a portfolio of over ₹300 crores across 12 business units. She has also served as Acting Director of IRMA and on the boards of over a dozen academic institutions, foundations, and nonprofits. She holds a PGDRM from IRMA and a BCom from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University.

Note: This webinar is part one of a series designed for professionals who are considering a career in the social sector and want to understand how management skills can be used to create meaningful social impact. 

The other webinars in this series are as follows:

Webinar 2: Careers with purpose: Is Development Management for you?

Webinar 3: From classroom to community: Inside Executive MBA (Development Management)

Webinar 4: Managing partnerships, networks and change in the social sector

Webinar 5: Finance, compliance and accountability in social sector organisations