Who we are

Kavita Anand leads on the school set up arm of Adhyayan – from the first stages of school planning through to providing support and self-review advice to the newly set up schools. As the head of Training and Development for Adhyayan she manages and conducts training programmes for teacher induction, school improvement and leadership and management. In addition to training school leaders in SSRE she carries out external validations of schools using the SSRE diagnostic. Kavita also provides consultation services in Leadership and Management for the new teacher education project across India and English in Action Programmes through the Open University. Kavita’s work has positively influenced students, teachers and administrators across socio-economic groups in both urban and rural settings. With a background in behavioural science, she has undertaken a range of roles in her professional experience spanning 24 years. As Executive Director of Shishuvan, an acclaimed ICSE school in Mumbai set up by her, she was responsible for all activity from the classroom to the boardroom. She was a member of the Expert Groups for the revision of the texts for IGNOU’s diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education and for the Social Studies curriculum of SCERT, Maharashtra. She has provided consultancy services to school networks, NGOs and funding agencies. Kavita cut her teeth on financial management as a programme officer in a leading national funding agency. She is the Trustee of two not-for-profit organisations in the fields of education, arts and culture. As Sole Proprietor of ALC since 2000, she has set up schools, creates curricula, trains teachers and school leaders, networks with managements and intensively mentors administrators in educational institutions. kavita.anand@adhyayan.asia

Spokey Wheeler is a Fellow of The Royal Society for Arts and a NET Leading Thinker. As Adhyayan’s International Director he is leading the introduction of the Adhyayan Quality Standard and our Advocacy School network. Spokey manages the Adhyayan School Self-Review and Evaluation Diagnostic (SSRE) programme. He also facilitates Adhyayan’s involvement with the Open University’s new teacher education project across India and co-ordinates our consultation services in Leadership and Management for the Bangladesh ‘English in Action’ Programme. In India and internationally, as the Director of Bespoke Solutions, Spokey supports donor agencies, corporates, business, not-for-profit and state organisations in the areas of quality, strategic leadership and management, school set-up, and leadership coaching and development. During his international school leadership career he led three secondary schools in England and Germany, turning around a failing inner London secondary school and then setting it up as an independent State Academy, launched an Education Action Zone of 16 state schools and became one of the inaugural consultant leaders of London Challenge. As the Advisor for International Education at Absolute Return for Kids (ARK), Spokey developed and launched its School Leaders for India programme. He was the CEO of KGVK Gurukul, a rural, low-cost high quality school network in Jharkhand, and also supported the set up of a private school network across West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar. His work with the World Bank has included the internationalisation of teacher training in India.

Roy Blatchford is Founding Director of the National Education Trust, an independent foundation which leads excellent practice and innovation in education, operating from the classroom to Whitehall. Previously he was Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools (HMI) in England, with national responsibilities for school improvement and for the inspection of outstanding schools. Roy has extensive experience of writing inspection frameworks, nationally and internationally, and has inspected and reviewed over 1000 schools and colleges in the UK and Europe, USA, Middle East and India. He has served as an adviser to various governments, most recently as Deputy Chair of the DfE Teachers’ Standards Review (2012) and of the Headteachers’ Standards Review (2014). Roy has worked with HM Prison Service, the NHS and the Arts Council in a number of voluntary capacities, and is a Visiting Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. He is co-founder of the Mumbai-based education foundation Adhyayan. He was appointed CBE for services to education in the 2016 New Year Honours.

Director at Adhyayan with 16 years of experience in the field of education is the former Principal and Director of Shishuvan(ICSE), Mumbai. During her tenure at the school, Neha has been on the selection panel of the British Council’s International Schools’ Award for 3 years. Shishuvan is one of the top 10 schools in Maharashtra as ranked by Education World, and No. 1 school in the Hindustan’s Mumbai’s East Zone.
Neha is an Adhyayan Lead Assessor and has led over 40 external reviews. She leads the ASIST (Adhyayan School Support and Training) program at Adhyayan and has rich experience in leading school reviews, designing professional development of school leaders, teaching leaders and creating Bespoke programme for school transformation.
She has undergone training conducted by IIM Kolkata for ICSE principals, NABET training, and has presented at Exseed Conference, Teach for India, ACEED and various other local forums.
She can be contacted at : neha.chheda@adhyayan.asia

Terri Menham has over thirty years of experience in primary and special education; fifteen as the innovative and inspirational leader of three inclusive primary schools. Throughout headship her leadership and management has always been graded as outstanding by Ofsted. She has opened two brand new schools and in 2010 Red Oaks was graded as an outstanding school; echoing a career of putting children first and developing highly skilled staff.
Red Oaks works in partnership both locally, nationally and internationally, and delivers curriculum frameworks that are innovative, global and engage the pupil voice through enquiry learning. The school ethos is a positive one, with an exciting curriculum that empowers learners and promotes basic skills. This is underpinned by engaging pupils in exploring values for life and building pupils’ learning power.

Keith Sharp has been a successful Headteacher both in the state and academy sector, with specialist experience in moving schools out of challenging situations. His experience of leading schools has ranged from long standing Headships; start up schools, interim appointments as Headteacher and executive Head positions. His educational background includes a degree in mathematics, masters of education degree from Cambridge, NPQH, Ofsted experience, along with a firsthand experience of good educational practice from around the world. He has extensive experience in developing school new buildings, HR and financial aspects of successful educational establishments. He has a wide experience of bid writing for Free Schools and am currently a director and educational adviser on the Wapping free High school, due to open September 2012.Additionally, he has led and advised a range of schools on converting to academy status, along with both inspectorial work in the UK and abroad.

Susan L. Hillman is Professor of Teacher Education at Saginaw Valley State University, Michigan, U.S.A., and an International Associate with Adhyayan. She achieved her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Mathematics Education at the University of Delaware, U.S.A. in 1996; her M.A. degree in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in middle school mathematics was completed at Michigan State University, and her B.A. degree was completed with a double major in Elementary Education and Mathematics at Alma College. She began her career teaching middle school mathematics for several years. Eventually, she taught remedial mathematics classes for university students who needed extra help. This was the motivation to move into teacher education to help prepare new teachers of mathematics in ways that would ultimately benefit students. Her current research projects include international comparison of mathematics curriculum, strategies for teaching problem solving in mathematics with English Language Learners, strategies for teaching teachers how to give effective feedback to students, and the impact of the Adhyayan Quality Standard process (AQS) on the quality of education.

Haseeb A Drabu is professional Economist – Banker with a wide-ranging experience. He has been involved with national economic policy making in India for seven years at the highest level, including in the Planning Commission, Finance Commission and the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of India. He has also worked as the Economic Advisor, the Principal Economic policy maker, at the state level for seven years. Thereafter, he headed a commercial bank as Chairman and Chief Executive for five years. In between government policy making and banking operations, headed India’s premier financial daily, Business Standard. Even as a regular commentator on economic issues, was associated with various governmental policy making bodies both at the Centre as well as the State level.
At present he has moved to the Corporate Sector and is advising Essar Group of Companies as its Group Economic Advisor. He is also advising a clutch of foreign and domestic funds. He also writes a fortnightly column for Wall Street Journal partner in India, the business daily, Mint. He has been associated with government and corporate policy making in various capacities. He was a member of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on the Long-term Development, Member Planning Commission’s Working Group on Resources other than Tax Resources for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, Consultant, Asian Development Bank on reforms and reconstruction in J&K, Member Commission on Centre-State Relations, and Member of the Expert Group on “Promotion of Diversity in living, education and workspaces for the minorities” formed by Government of India.

Bhawani Singh Shekhawat is a Marketing, Strategy, Insights and Management professional with an array of experience in Asia, Middle East, Africa, North America and Europe. He has a B.A. (Honours) in Economics and a Masters from the Bombay School of Economics. After beginning his career in consulting and at Lintas: India; Bhawani joined Nielsen in various regional General Management positions in Emerging Markets and went on to lead the consumer arm in Europe. His roles at Reckitt Benckiser (in Global Marketing Science) and Coca-Cola (in Strategy Planning) involved directing teams in change management and strategy formulation.
Following such a diverse international career, Bhawani returned to India in 2010. Now living in Bangalore, he now spends his time pursuing his passion of the continually changing world of marketing, consumption and brands through teaching at leading business schools and consulting as well as advising and mentoring business leaders and entrepreneurs. As a member of Adhyayan’s Advisory board, Bhawani helps guide overall long term strategy and direction.

Alleyah Asgghar has been involved in various roles in strategy and management of the creative process across television, radio and broadcasting. Starting off as a producer at Z Axis working on commercials such as Green World Foods and Vicks Vaposyrup, Alleyah then moved into editing, directing, writing, her filmography includes pitching on projects such as Aquaguard, Fortune Cooking Oil and Afterbath cream. During her time as a Creative Consultant on Films and Radio at Triton Communications, she added creative value and clarity of message as well as developed in-house talent and recruited producers and directors. Alleyah then moved to Reliance as Regional Programming Head (West) to look after a cluster of 9 radio stations, Director (Creative & Programming) and Creative Director at the Production House, chiefly focusing on strategy on non fiction content.
Alleyah is currently the Vice President & Creative Head at MIX – Multi Screen Media. Whilst in this role she has launched a new mainstream Hindi Music Channel and is currently responsible for strategy development and all creative and design decisions.

Kamal Singh has considerable corporate experience. His time as a producer in Mumbai included stints at Hour Glass Pictures, Primetime Media Services and Times Television. Kamal then shared his time between the UK and Mumbai as a Media Analyst at Report International, analyzing the impact of reportage on brands. He followed this with a role in business development at Kismet Films, Mumbai. In this role he focused on building professional relationships and developing business opportunities with international and Indian agencies such as BBH, JWT and The Republic.
Kamal’s current projects combine his passion for fitness (as illustrated by his black belt in Tae Kwon Do and kettlebell training!) and for business. He is training instructors for Mickey Mehta’s gym which has chains nationwide, developing corporate wellness programs for HSBC India, Godrej and KPMG as well as being a personal trainer for Bollywood stars and fashion industry models.

Ashish Basu, an alumnus of the IIM, Bangalore and IIT, Bombay, is President of NIIT’s Knowledge Solutions Business. He brings over 20 years of experience in Instructional Research, and Consulting to NIIT, helping the company emerge as a clear leader in the field of Knowledge Management and e-Learning. He has consulted for global majors such as IBM, Reuters, AT&T, The World Bank and USAID, among others. Mr. Basu was COO, Institute of Quality Limited, India’s premier Quality and Process consulting organization during 1994-99. He was a member of the steering committee of the Global Bench-marking Network during 1996-97. He has been interested in the field of Quality and was a pioneer in introducing standards into NIIT starting from 1993, first with ISO 9000 and then SEI CMM levels. The content development function was the first in the world to be certified to both these standards. Currently he is working with his wife, Kalpana, on a project for safe neighbourhoods for women.

Jayshree Oza has a Masters in Education Management (Administration), Masters in Education (M.Ed.) and Doctorate in International Affairs. She is a Team Leader and Specialist at the Technical Cooperation Agency (TCA) for the SA-Technical Cooperation Fund. The project was to build capacity of the National Council of Educational Research and training (NCERT) and state agencies in the areas of National Achievement Survey and Programme Evaluation. The project used various strategies to build capacity of senior professionals; courses & workshops, exposure to best practices and technical & learning resources. Besides this several evaluations and achievement surveys have been completed while using the modality of “learning by doing” followed by reflection and mentoring through expert support.
Jayshree Oza has expertise in the area of education management with focus on leadership and institutional development, Curriculum & Pedagogy at the school education has been her strong interest. She has been involved in research and capacity building activities including training and consulting with schools, government departments and civil society agencies to bring about desired change. Her passion is Social Justice. Jayshree has been in the field of education for more than twenty eight years in various administrative, leadership and consulting positions. She has worked with chains of schools, government agency and university departments at the national as well as international levels. This has been in India, USA and in the South Asia region.
She founded and directed a professional development centre named Centre for Education Management & Development (CEMD) for twelve years. Jayshree has developed courses in Education Leadership and Management for administrators at all levels. She has published course materials for these courses besides publishing related materials and articles for teachers and administrators. In innovative education her publications in Environment Science, Peace & Gender education and the Learning Classroom Series are noteworthy.
Jayshree has been on numerous education missions to monitor and evaluate various educational programmes for the MHRD, India and the funding agencies and serves on many Boards of governors for Not for profits and schools.

Pritesh Chheda is a commerce graduate from Mumbai University who joined a family owned business of automobile parts and accessories in 1990. He was instrumental in adding clients like Bajaj Tempo Ltd, SRF Ltd (Ashok Leyland) to the company’s portfolio. He gained hands on experience in all aspects of medium scale manufacturing business from production planning to purchase, sales, accounts, inventory management, and contract manufacturing. However, working in the social sector has always been a dream for Pritiesh. The calling came in the form of Adhyayan. His business expertise is helping Adhyayan to strengthen its operations and legal obligations. His central focus in the team is business planning and strategic organization.
pritesh.chheda@adhyayan.asia

Poonam leads the Adhyayan Quality Standard programme at Adhyayan that helps the school community to look at their school through the lens of leadership and quality.  It involves training the school community, managing the operations and delivery of the programme nationally.  She has been involved since inception and has contributed towards designing and developing resources for the programme and has supported its marketing reach.  She has successfully led 30+ trainings, reviewed 15+ schools across 10+ states in the country that includes schools associated with State, National and International examination boards.  She is also spearheading the development of online portal for the organisation that intends to provide the school leaders with the tools and platform to review and their schools performance against the global standards.  She has completed her post-graduation from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management specialising in Operations Management and has 10+ years of previous industry and corporate experience of leading and managing teams for training, production and quality deliverables.

Viveki Pasta has a rich experience in developing age appropriate lesson plans for holistic development of children with skill development matrices to track progress. She has worked with remedial educators and counsellors to integrate special education needs students. Her planning and logistical skills help develop efficient systems to enhance the learning attainment and life skills of children from less privileged backgrounds. She evaluates teacher effectiveness, trains teachers and undertakes curriculum reviews. She leads improvement audits and advice to schools. She has participated in and run English language programmes. She has a Bachelor’s in Education and has done a Rudolf Steiner Education Course. viveki.pasta@adhyayan.asia

Amisha leads The Assessor Programme (TAP) at Adhyayan, a platform for leaders to collaborate and learn collectively to drive improvement across schools. This involves facilitating the professional development of leaders from diverse contexts, strategically planning and delivering the programme nationally.

Since Adhyayan’s inception, Amisha has gained a working knowledge of programmes across the organisation’s work profile. She has contributed to the evolution of both AQS and ASIST programmes, creating resources, delivering workshops, and conducting reviews in 35+ schools across India. As a CITI Certified researcher, Amisha is a member of the research team that partners with Saginaw Valley State University, Michigan, USA.

Amisha facilitates skills and knowledge development across the environments in which she works; she leads Adhyayan’s Internship Programme and has contributed to establishing Adhyayan’s internal review systems, working alongside team members to build capacity.

With an MSc in Public Policy and Administration from The London School of Economics, UK, Amisha has worked with governmental and consultancy organisations in the UK, as well as with Adhyayan’s UK partner, the National Education Trust (NET) to gain multiple perspectives on education policy, delivery and review.
amisha.modi@adhyayan.asia

Swati has recently joined the Adhyayan team as Researcher. She is involved in conducting field based research, especially documenting impact of Adhyayan’s work, to inform programme development and marketing strategies. She is also actively involved in enhancing Adhyayan’s contribution to education policy debates by establishing research-led evidence based on Adhyayan’s experiences as we expand our outreach and network, both nationally and internationally. She completed graduation from Delhi University, specializing in Human Development and Master’s in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her past research experience involves working at organizations like Institute of Social Studies Trust, Delhi and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
swati.gupta@adhyayan.asia

 Nilima has recently joined the Adhyayan team and she efficiently handles the organization’s accounts. She handles the internal and external account transaction and adds to the talent pool with her knowledge of advanced accounts. She completed her BCom from Siddharth College Mumbai and is also of expert in accounting software like Tally and ERP.