Management Team

FifthEstate’s core team consists of division heads and a core advisory team. All the members of the management team have multiple years of experience in different sectors including business advisory, technology and social development.

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Pallavi Gupta
Managing Director

Pallavi comes from a background of technology and development studies and is passionate about utilizing technology for development. She is a graduate from London School of Economics where she majored in open innovation techniques and technology for development in emerging economies. She has worked as a business consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers and as a software engineer with IBM Software Labs, McAfee Software and Autodesk . She has more than nine years of experience of working in UK, Singapore and India and has worked on projects with DFID, USAID and Sida.

Mathew Vilayasseril
Research & Policy Head

Mathew Vilayasseril is a Post Graduate from Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). He has worked with elected representatives across the political spectrum. He is a proponent of deepening democracies and his work includes electoral and political research and improving the performance of elected representatives in Parliament/Assemblies through policy advocacy.

Nick Saunders
Head of Business Development

Nick is a graduate from London School of Economics where he majored in designing information services, IT strategy and innovation management. He is an international analyst and consultant with experience in creating strategic solutions and serving diverse clients in UK, Germany, and US. He has experienced in Innovation Management, Product Innovation and Management, Collaborative services, Project Management and Social Media.

Venkitesh Ramakrishnan
Chief Advisor & Advocate

Venkitesh is the Associate Editor of Frontline, a leading fortnightly published by The Hindu group of publications. He is a renowned political journalist and has covered National Affairs extensively throughout the country. He has been heavily involved in activities regarding Development issues with special focus on empowerment of the socially and economically marginalized sections of the society. He’s also involved in reporting on broader socio-anthropological trends and other sociology related subjects with an emphasis on environment, health and tribal life.

Siddharth Chaturvedi
State Head, Uttar Pradesh

Siddharth, an entrepreneur himself, comes from marketing background. He has more than eight years of experience in Business Development of education and media, by effective business strategies. He has over the years worked across sectors in multiple districts in Uttar Pradesh and has worked with both business sector and government.

Durga Sahu
Project Manager, Uttar Pradesh

A graduate of Political Science from Lucknow University, Durga is diligent, sincere & a keen learner. She has worked as a project coordinator and administrator in her earlier engagements across different sectors. She has managed and lead various events and has also been a key player in a challenging & creative environment. In her free time, Durga also work as a freelance content writer. She is a great team player and an ardent project manager.

Abhishek Tiwari
Technology Partner of FifthEstate

Abhishek is MD of Abhitech, an IT consultancy firm that provides services to various government and non-government small and large enterprises in India, USA, Sweden, UK, Canada, Singapore and many more countries. Abhitech is a Technology partner of FifthEstate. In the last 10 years of operations Abhitech has worked with several state government organizations like Uttar Pradesh Awas Vikas Parishad, Uttar Pradesh State Biodiversity Board, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Arbi Urdu Farsi University, Uttar Pradesh Forest Department, District Administration Unnao, Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited etc. The international clientele for Abhitech includes esteemed organized like The Kaplans Group (Europe), The Nordea Bank (Europe), Graduation Solutions LP (USA), Harvard Drug Group (USA), King Abdullah Medical University (Saudi Arabia), University of Queensland (Australia), The Alternet (Slovenia) etc.

Dr. Arvind Mohan
Advisor & Advocate

Dr Mohan is an eminent Economist and besides being Professor of Economics at University of Lucknow he has worked as a Consultant with World Bank, Adjunct Faculty IIM Lucknow, and Faculty for the Flagship Program of University of Texas. He also has the experience of working with UNDP, UNICEF, USAID and other national and international agencies. He has been Member of the State Taxes Board, GoUP; Member of Infrastructure Committee of GoUP; Member Technical Advisory Group NABARD; member policy committees of State Planning Commission; policy committee of Ministry of Medical Health and Family Welfare GoUP; and has worked closely with Udyog Bandhu and Department of Institutional Finance GoUP.