Smarinita to lead the $14 million initiative addressing Maternal & Newborn Child Health
INDIACSR News Network
MUMBAI: Dasra, India’s leading philanthropy foundation, today announced the appointment of Smarinita Shetty, who joins as Director to lead the Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn Child Health and Adolescent Girls vertical. In her role at Dasra, Smarinita will foster an innovative and collective impact approach leading the recently announced $14 million initiative in collaboration with U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and The Kiawah Trust of U.K.
Approximately 67,000 mothers die each year from complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Almost half of children in India under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition, with about 70 percent of these children suffering from anemia. Smarinita will address these significant issues of maternal and child mortality.
Neera Nundy, Partner and Co-Founder of Dasra says, “Over the next 5 years, the Alliance aims to forge strategic partnerships in the maternal, child health and adolescent girl empowerment space and build a multi stakeholder ecosystem in India. We are excited to have Smarinita leverage her expertise, skills, networks and passion to create social impact at scale in India.”
Smarinita Shetty is also senior practitioner at Monitor Inclusive Markets and leads the unit’s Impact Sourcing initiative. In her last assignment, Smarinita was a core member of the affordable housing team with direct responsibility for facilitating the increase of housing supply and managing relationships with signature clients. She has over 15 years of experience leading and managing functions across operations, sales and business development, largely in start-up environments.
“I believe that Dasra’s maternal, child health and adolescent girl empowerment mission has the potential to create large scale and long term social change. I am therefore very excited to be part of an endeavor that aims to empower and transform a million lives in our country in the next 5 years” comments Smarinita.
In an increasingly observed trend of professionals leaving their financially lucrative career options to get actively involved in social causes, Smarinita was Vice President at JP Morgan where she managed the firm’s investment banking research operations in Mumbai. Prior to JP Morgan, she co-founded Netscribes, a third party research outsourcing firm. She subsequently went on to become actively involved with Magic Bus, a non-profit that works with at-risk children in Mumbai. Smarinita has a BE in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai and a Masters in Management Studies in Finance from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.
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