Senior Program Officer, Philanthropic PartnershipsBill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Akruti Desai is a Senior Program Officer on the Philanthropic Partnerships team where she leads the team’s investment services offerings providing opportunities for individual philanthropists to learn, engage, and invest in BMGF issue areas.
Akruti began her career in asset management advising some of the world’s largest public pension funds on their private equity investments. After several years in the field, her desire to find a more meaningful career led her to Mumbai where she briefly worked as a Fellow at Dasra. Most recently, Akruti spent over four years at the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (an initiative of the Clinton Foundation) where she helped create and incubate social businesses and led the initiative's expansion into Asia and Africa.
Akruti holds an MS in Investment Management from Boston University and a dual BA in Economics and English from University of California, Los Angeles.