Archives: People

Ashish Desai has over 25 years’ experience in the areas of technology, digital payments, and credit and microfinance. His leadership experience includes running P&L and building greenfield technology-driven businesses in mobile financial services, covering remittances, payments, and microlending across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.  He has served as Director of Monitoring and Evaluation at the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), NITI Aayog, where he was responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of all trade, finance, and commerce ministries and departments. His corporate experience spans diverse organisations, including the Aditya Birla Group, First Rand Bank, Jumo, and Motorola. He evangelized and founded the Mobiquity mobile money platform for Mahindra Comviva (erstwhile Bharti Telesoft), which has deployments in over 45 countries and over 100 million registered users. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Mumbai, and an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

Ashish holds a PhD in Economics from Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.

Research Interest – Technology and Digital Public Infrastructure

Chandi Charan Mehentar is a Consultant at NCAER within the States, Sectors, Surveys, and Impact Evaluation unit.

I holds Doctorate degree in Economics from Centre for the Study of Regional Development (CSRD), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has worked as Faculty in Economics (Contract) at Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida and also as Assistant Professor at DGIM Law College Faridabad, Haryana.

His research interests include Employment, Labour Market, Agricultural Economics, Land Markets, Social Exclusion and Caste Discrimination, Poverty and Inequality.

Sagnik Das is a Research Associate at NCAER within States, Sectors, Surveys, and Impact Evaluation unit. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Calcutta University, complemented by a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the same institution. He has further enriched his skill set through advanced certification coursework in Data Science with Advanced Tableau.