INDIAN AMERICAN IMPACT - Key Persons
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- Program and Events Manager
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- County Commissioner
- County Commissioner / Michigan
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- City Council
- City Council / Iowa
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- County Official ( Other )
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- City Council
- City Council / Texas
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- City Council
- City Council / Ohio
Deepak Raj - Founder, Treasurer
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- Co - Founder
- Treasurer
- Co - Founder and Treasurer / Chairman of Pratham USA and Founder of the Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia University
- Founder and Managing Director of the New Jersey
Deepak Raj is founder and managing director of the New Jersey-based private investment firm Raj Associates with investments in real estate and public and private securities. He is also, with his wife Neera, the founder of the Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia University.
Deepak has extensive experience as an equity analyst and an investment banker. His leadership positions during 24 years with Merrill Lynch include senior analyst in research (and member of the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team); head of their Global Consumer Products Investment Banking practice; and senior vice president and member of the firm's executive management committee.
As director of Global Equity Research, he managed a staff of approximately 700 investment professionals located throughout the world. Deepak graduated from IIT Kanpur with a BTech in electrical engineering and earned an MBA from Northeastern University. He is chairman of Pratham USA.
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- City Council
- City Council / Arkansas
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- City Council
- City Council / Virginia
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- City Council
- City Council / Washington
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- City Council
- City Council / California
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- City Council
- City Council / Virginia
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- City Council
- City Council / Ohio
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- City Council
- City Council / Washington
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- City Council
- City Council / California
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- County Official ( Other )
Liz Sankarsingh is a nonprofit professional with a background in fundraising and arts and culture programming. She has worked to strengthen nonprofit organizations by providing data management, donor relations, and grant writing support.
In her most recent role, she worked with her colleagues at Ignite/Arts Dallas at SMU Meadows School of the Arts to design, implement, and fundraise around community engagement initiatives at the intersection of art, environmentalism, and social justice. Because she is passionate about advocating for the health and wellness of disinvested communities, Liz serves on the Board of Directors for Junior Players and volunteers as a grants panelist for TACA (The Arts Community Alliance). Liz holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre from the College of Santa Fe, and a Master of Liberal Studies degree with a concentration in Creative Writing from Southern Methodist University. She lives in Dallas, TX with her wonderful husband and daughter.
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- County Official ( Other )
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- City Council
- City Council / Oregon
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- City Council
- City Council / Virginia
Narendra spent over 20 years in various global leadership roles. In 2012, he was appointed as the Global Managing Director for the Accenture Applied Intelligence business unit. Narendra built a business that leveraged the power of analytics and Artificial Intelligence to address consumer, healthcare and industrial applications for Accenture's clients. Since 2019 he has divided his time between nonprofits focused on Global Healthcare and homelessness, nurtured AI based startups and is leveraging his knowledge of AI and Digital to grow healthcare companies.
Job Titles:
- City Council
- Mayor
- Mayor, City Council / California
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- President of the South Asian Bar Association
- Public Interest Attorney and Election Law Professor
Neil Makhija is a public interest attorney and election law professor who serves as the Executive Director of Impact. Makhija led Impact and its affiliates through the 2020 election on their mission to engage South Asian and Indian American communities and help them run for, win, and be successful in elected office.
Neil was born and raised as a son of immigrants in Carbon County, Pennsylvania and went on to earn his law degree at Harvard Law School. His legal work focused on issues of consumer protection, workers' rights and public interest. He now serves as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In his legal work, he has represented essential workers, consumers, and the public interest.
Neil knows what it's like to run for office. In 2016, he was the Democratic nominee for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives 122nd District, where he outperformed the national ticket by 14 points in the general election. During the campaign, he won a court case protecting the rights of students and recent graduates to run for office in their home state under the Pennsylvania Constitution.
While at Impact, Neil has guided the organization to become part of a broad coalition advocating for inclusive policy that affects the community. In 2021, he was chosen as one of 13 Asian American civil rights leaders to meet President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House to discuss immigration and voting rights.
Neil has served as president of the South Asian Bar Association in Philadelphia and is a member of the board of trustees at his alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College. He was listed as one of the "40 under 40" influential people in Pennsylvania by City & State PA.
Job Titles:
- County Official ( Other )
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- City Council
- City Council / Virginia
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- City Council
- City Council / California
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- County Official ( Other )
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- County Official ( Other )
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- City Council
- City Council / Virginia
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- City Council
- City Council / Washington
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- Deputy Director of Development and Membership
Prerana Nadig joins the Impact team with a strong history of financial leadership, most recently serving as Finance Manager for the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association.
Prior to her work at the DLGA, she worked with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, where she helped flip the Senate! While working towards her degree in Political Science from UC Berkeley, she was an intern on Katie Porter's successful congressional campaign.
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- City Council
- City Council / California
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- Director
- Director / Managing Director of Federal Government Affairs for KPMG LLP
- Managing Director of Federal Government Affairs for KPMG
Priya Dayananda is Managing Director of Federal Government Affairs for KPMG, where she is responsible for representing KPMG's interests in all matters of public policy before the Federal and state governments and for assisting non-U.S. practices in achieving their government affairs goals.
Priya also advances the U.S. firm's public policy agenda by communicating the firm's priorities and positions to the Administration, Members of Congress, and Regulators. Over the course of 20 years, Priya has worked on Capitol Hill as a Senior Advisor to Members of Congress on the House Financial Services Committee and as a registered financial services lobbyist for 16 years.
Puja is a creative powerhouse. With a strong background in graphic design, digital marketing and branding, she is passionate about using her talents to give back to underrepresented communities.
She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she extensively photographed events hosted by Indian American and South Asian student organizations and was a featured exhibiting artist at the Asian American Cultural Center on campus.
Puja grew up in western Kentucky, where she worked as a Community Relations Assistant at her alma mater, Paducah Public Schools. Prior to joining Impact in 2022, she was a Digital Graphic Designer and Content Creator for the global ice cream brand, Dippin' Dots.
She currently lives in Oregon and enjoys exploring the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director / Impact Fund
Raghu has over twenty years of campaign experience and heads the Washington, DC office of Left Hook Communications. Raghu has led high profile independent expenditure, congressional, and statewide elections across the country, including Congressman Ami Bera's historic upset win in 2012 and subsequent re-election, which was one of the most expensive congressional races in history. Raghu was the first Asian American to be named Political Director of a national party committee - first at the DLCC and then at the DGA. While at the DLCC, he helped flip 30 chambers into Democratic control - the largest partisan Democratic shift in our nation's history.
Raghu also managed the independent expenditure and issue advocacy program for AFSCME, overseeing one of the largest programs in Democratic politics spending over $40 million dollars up and down the ballot working on races across the country. Prior to founding Left Hook, Raghu was a partner at A|L Media. A die-hard Green Bay Packer fan, Raghu lives in Washington DC with his wife Reema and their two daughters.
Raj Goyle - Chairman, Founder
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- Chairman
- Co - Founder
- Co - CEO of Bodhala
- Co - Founder and Chair / CEO of Bodhala and Former Member of the Kansas State House
Raj Goyle is co-CEO of Bodhala, a data company focused on the legal industry. In 2006, Raj became the first Asian American elected in Kansas history and the first Democrat elected to his State House seat in Wichita in 2006. He was re-elected in 2008 and in 2010, ran for Congress against then-Congressman Mike Pompeo. After leaving Kansas politics, Raj moved to New York City, where he served as a senior advisor to Shelley and Donald Rubin's family office on philanthropic, political and business matters. He sits on the boards of Hunger Free America, New Deal Democrats, the State Innovation Exchange, Everyartist.me, Issue One, and Planned Parenthood of NYC Action Fund. He is the co-founder of the Indian American Impact Project and the India Center Foundation and serves on the advisory board of the American India Foundation. Raj has worked as a staff member for the ACLU, the Center for American Progress, and served as an adjunct professor at Wichita State University. He holds degrees from Duke University and Harvard Law School.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director / Impact Fund
- Retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MacKay Shields
Ravi Akhoury is a retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MacKay Shields, a multi-product investment management firm with assets under management of fifty billion dollars. He has been in the investment management business since 1973. Ravi is a member of the Executive Management Committee of New York Life Insurance Company and a former director of Max/New York Life India.
He is a trustee of the American India Foundation, Putnam Mutual Funds, Eventwist, Rageframeworks, and English Helper as well as a former board member of the Bharti Telecom and Thompson Press in India. Ravi graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology with a BS in Engineering and obtained an MS in Quantitative Methods from SUNY at Stony Brook.
For Becca, what started as a gap year of Americorps National Service turned into more than a decade spent in education non-profit organizations.
Most recently, she served as the Manager of Strategic Initiatives at First Up, an organization dedicated to ensuring quality early education experiences for all children. Ranging from large-scale event management to strategic planning and everything in between, Becca brings a keen eye for detail and systems creation to the Impact team.
She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Politics and Government and Sociology from the University of Hartford in Hartford, CT. She currently lives in Philadelphia where she can most commonly be found talking about Star Wars and social justice over an iced coffee.
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- Development Director & Texas State Director
Rish Oberoi is a first generation Texan and native Houstonian who has been active in fundraising, organizing, and legislative affairs since 2016.
After graduating from the University of Houston, Rish served as a policy aide for former Texas Speaker Joe Straus in the 85th Legislature where he focused on elections and public education policy. Beginning in 2017, he shifted over to the civic engagement world and subsequently spent the next four years raising over $5 million to benefit candidates and organizations such as the nonprofit MOVE Texas.
In 2020, Rish ran in the Democratic primary for the Texas Legislature in which he was the youngest and first South Asian candidate in the district's history. Rish has singularly pursued a career in the social impact sector with a desire to build power among marginalized voters and cultivate civic involvement. He is looking forward to growing with Impact as its incredible team continues to reshape our civic landscape.
Rish lives in Houston with his wife Alysha and loves to travel, read, doomscroll, and debunk conspiracy theories.
Job Titles:
- City Council
- City Council / California
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- City Council
- City Council / Texas
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- Deputy Organizing Director & PA / NJ State Director
Sarah Lin holds a bachelor's degree with highest honors from Rutgers University and a master's degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where she studied democracy and politics as a Gleitsman Fellow and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Asian American Policy Review.
Most recently, Sarah staffed the Shapiro-Davis gubernatorial transition in Pennsylvania and led grassroots outreach and political engagement as the Pennsylvania Democratic Party's statewide AAPI Coalitions Director for the 2022 election cycle. As the AAPI Director, Sarah directed PA's first-ever AAPI Week of Action and spearheaded a language access program with voter education resources in 21 AAPI languages.
Sarah has previously volunteered on mayoral, gubernatorial, and presidential campaigns and currently serves on the Taiwanese American Citizens League's National Board. Sarah was raised in Asian immigrant communities in New Jersey and currently lives in Philadelphia, PA.
Job Titles:
- Director of Policy and Community Engagement
Sarah Shah joined the Impact team in March 2021, bringing a wealth of experience in community and electoral organizing, policy analysis, and teaching. Most recently, Sarah served as the Deputy AAPI Director with the Democratic Party of Georgia and helped mobilize Asian American communities in advance of the U.S. Senate runoff.
Previously, she worked as the Out-of-State Director with the North Carolina Democratic Party's Coordinated Campaign. Prior to the 2020 campaign cycle, Sarah spent the past decade in the education and nonprofit sectors supporting efforts to close the opportunity gap.
Sarah holds a bachelor's degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and a Masters in Public Policy from Duke University, though her heart bleeds Carolina Blue. Sarah lives in Durham, NC with her husband and two dogs.
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- City Council
- City Council / Washington
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- City Council
- City Council / Tennessee
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- City Council
- City Council / New York
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- City Council
- City Council / Ohio
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- County Official ( Other )
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- City Council
- City Council / California
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- City Council
- City Council / New York
Siv is a founding member and Senior Vice President of Consumer Marketing at GoodRx, a company that helps millions of Americans save money on their prescription drugs. She has a passion for bringing affordable healthcare to Americans and graduated from MIT in 2012.
Job Titles:
- City Council
- City Council / Iowa
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- County Official ( Other )
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- National Organizing Director & Data Strategist
Taher Hasanali joins Impact with a wide range of expertise and experience from within and outside the Political space. A chemical engineer by education, Taher worked to develop innovative battery technologies for renewable energy storage early in his career before transitioning into the Political world after being inspired to make a difference after the 2018 election in Georgia.
He most recently worked in 2021 as one of two AAPI Constituency Directors Nationwide with the Democratic Party in Georgia forging strong community relationships and setting a foundation to ensure representation, inclusion, and civic engagement among the AAPI population across the state. Before that he worked in organizing and candidate management and support with State Legislative candidates and the Biden Campaign in 2020 in Georgia, and then as a Deputy AAPI Director on the runoffs in 2021 building innovative programming centered on organizing and getting out the vote among the Asian population.
With experience in complex problem solving and data analysis as an engineer, Taher aims to marry his expertise in data and community engagement to build intentional and innovative programming to further South Asian engagement and representation in the political world. Although originally from Houston, Texas, he currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia and has a Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston.
Job Titles:
- City Council
- City Council / Kansas
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- Managing Director at Accion Venture Lab
Vikas Raj is Managing Director at Accion Venture Lab, leading the group's work on investments in addition to managing portfolio relationships and driving the strategy and growth of Accion Venture Lab.
Prior to joining Accion, Vikas was an M&A investment banker at Evercore Partners, where he advised on multiple corporate transactions with aggregate value of over $45 billion across the technology, real estate, consumer products and industrials sectors. Previously, Vikas worked in microfinance, primarily in India, at Ujjivan and Catalyst Microfinance Investors (CMI).
Vikas started his career at Deloitte Consulting where he was in the Corporate Strategy group. Vikas has a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia University.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Executive Director of SelectUSA
Vinai Thummalapally recently completed his term as Executive Director of SelectUSA, part of the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce established as a government-wide initiative to attract and retain business investment.
From 2009 to 2013, Vinai served as U.S. Ambassador to Belize. As Chief of Mission, he helped strengthen the relationship between Belize and the United States in the areas of citizen security, economic development, education, and healthcare. Before joining the Foreign Service, Vinai served as President of MAM-A Inc., formerly Mitsui Advanced Media. MAM-A Inc. was the leading manufacturer and distributor of archival recordable optical discs in the US. During his 14-year tenure, the company became the benchmark of the optical disc manufacturing industry. He has two patents in optical disc manufacturing design and has also won several professional awards. Vinai has a B.S. degree from the California State University (CSU) and took graduate classes in business administration from both CSU and the University of Tennessee.
Job Titles:
- City Council
- City Council / Texas