Pratham USA Announces the Appointment of Chandrika K. Tandon to its National Board of Advisors
Pratham USA announced today the appointment of Chandrika Krishnamurthy Tandon to its National Board of Advisors. Ms. Tandon brings considerable expertise in global finance and philanthropy as well as deep knowledge of issues of development and education in India. She joins current Advisory Board members, Rajat K. Gupta, former Chairman at McKinsey & Co and Natwar Gandhi, Chief Financial Officer for the District of Columbia.
New York, NY (PRWEB) August 12, 2010
Pratham USA announced today the appointment of Chandrika Krishnamurthy Tandon to its National Board of Advisors. Ms. Tandon brings considerable expertise in global finance and philanthropy as well as deep knowledge of issues of development and education in India. She joins current Advisory Board members, Rajat K. Gupta, former Chairman at McKinsey & Co and Natwar Gandhi, Chief Financial Officer for the District of Columbia.
“We are thrilled to welcome Chandrika to our leadership,” said Chairman of Pratham USA, Arvind Sanger. “Chandrika’s professional expertise and personal passions are strongly aligned with Pratham’s mission and with her partnership we look forward to continuing the scaled growth of our programs and reaching the many millions of children in need.”
Chandrika Krishnamurthy Tandon is Chairman of Tandon Capital Associates, Inc., a financial advisory firm founded in 1992. During her career, she has worked with Boards, Chief Executives and Senior Management teams of over 40 financial institutions all over the world. She has spearheaded projects that involved major financial and operational restructurings, global and domestic strategy, organizational redesign, core process/performance improvement and broad-based culture change.
Ms. Tandon, a Trustee of New York University, serves on the Board of Overseers of NYU Stern School of Business, where she is also Executive in Residence; the Dean's Council at NYU Wagner School of Public Service and the President’s Council on International Activities at Yale University. Through these involvements, she has actively worked on domestic and global strategy, formulated new initiatives, and conducted guest lectures on leadership, restructuring and transformation. In 2009, Chandrika received the Walter Nichols medal for representing the highest ideals of business, service and integrity from NYU Stern - whose prior recipients include Alan Greenspan, Jack Welch and Ken Chenault.
"Education is very dear to my heart and has been central to all of my work,” said Chandrika. “And, so I am delighted to now join and contribute to Pratham, an extraordinary organization having such significant impact on the ground in India and more broadly, on the global discourse about education.”
Ms. Tandon is also a Trustee and Board member of AIF, an Advisory board member of the Indo American Arts Council; and a founding board member of the Hindu Community Outreach Foundation. She chairs the Krishnamurthy Tandon Foundation which supports non-profits that focus on sustainable livelihoods, women’s economic power, education, the arts and spirituality.
About Pratham:
Pratham, which means "first" in Sanskrit, was founded in the slums of Mumbai in 1994 with UNICEF support. Today, Pratham’s direct urban programs, including pre-schools, community libraries and remedial learning programs reach hundreds of thousands of children every year. In 2007, with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Pratham launched the Read India campaign, an innovative, low-cost effort to reach the ~100 million children in India who cannot read, write or do basic math. With the continued support of the Hewlett Foundation in 2010, the Read India campaign has entered its second phase, focusing its attention at the village level and teaching more advanced learning skills.
Pratham's Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) evaluates India's status of education through direct testing of over 700,000 children in 16,000 villages across India. ASER is the only annual measurement of basic literacy and numeracy conducted at scale in India today and its widespread dissemination has helped focus government attention on the issue of learning. To support newly literate children across India, Pratham Books has developed and published over 130 titles and printed over 3 million children's books in local Indian languages.
Pratham's programs have been recognized internationally for their innovation and impact. Recently, Pratham won the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year Award in the public service category and the Henry R. Kravis Leadership Prize.
With an annual budget of less than $15 million, Pratham combines large-scale impact with an extremely efficient use of funds. Pratham USA (www. prathamusa. org), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a four-star rating (the highest possible) from Charity Navigator, accepts tax deductible contributions from U. S. donors.
Press Contact:
Sangita Karra, Pratham USA
914-260-3793
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