Our Hosts
Shruti Goyal
Shruti is an Associate Partner with Dalberg based in Mumbai. She advises private and public partners on building cities and urban developments, inclusive business, and investing for development. Shruti recently worked with a sovereign wealth fund in Asia to develop strategies for managing critical supplies security and championing a consortium of civil society and private partners to provide social welfare to migrant construction workers in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to Dalberg, Shruti has over 18 years of working experience with over a decade of experience with the Lodha Group, one of the largest real estate developers in India where she led real estate developments across the spectrum of affordable housing, smart cities and luxury residences. She started her career in consulting working with Sapient and the Boston Consulting Group across USA and UK. Shruti holds a master’s degree in business administration from the London Business School (Dean’s list) and a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Delhi College of Engineering.
Nirat Bhatnagar
Nirat is a Partner at Dalberg. He leads the firm’s Delhi office and also heads up Dalberg Advisors’ Water and Sanitation practice. He brings rich multi-disciplinary experience in strategy consulting, human-centred design and entrepreneurship. Nirat believes that most social problems in the world are too complex to be solved by any one method, and that value lies at the intersection of disciplines. At Dalberg, his work has involved strategy and design for clients in water and sanitation, financial inclusion, and agriculture.
Previously, Nirat successfully put together several multi-million-dollar innovation projects in water, sanitation, and livelihoods with global development partners such as the Gates Foundation, the UN, JPAL, and a host of private sector organizations. He has also been a management consultant and technology entrepreneur, as well as the practice lead in a human-centered design firm in India. Nirat has degrees from IIT Kharagpur & IIM Bangalore.
Tushar Thakkar
Tushar is an Associate Partner with Dalberg Advisors based in their Mumbai office. Tushar is primarily focused on the development finance & investment space, and also leads work in the cities space. In the cities space, Tushar has advised development-sector clients & city governments in relation to the development of resilience strategies and approaches to smart city development. In the cities space, Tushar recently worked with the UNDP Global Center for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development (UNDP GCTISD) on helping them re-conceptualize smart cities and develop a playbook & smart-city innovations archetypes for city leaders.
Before joining Dalberg, Tushar was a Vice President in the Mumbai office of Lazard, an investment bank, where he advised Indian and international clients in relation to M&A and fund-raising transactions. Tushar holds a Master of International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Bangalore.