Kavita Ramdas

Biography

Kavita Ramdas
Senior Advisor on Global Strategy, Ford Foundation

As senior adviser on global strategy, Kavita works closely with the executive leadership team at the Ford Foundation to help tackle ongoing challenges and seize opportunities arising from changes to civil society across the world. Together with foundation colleagues, she is developing approaches to advance indigenous philanthropy in the Global South, where the culture and practice of philanthropy is poised to evolve in powerful ways that are vital to advancing social justice. She is also focused on ensuring that support for women and girls is integrated into all Ford’s work, drawing on her long and distinguished career in global work on gender justice.

From 2012 to 2015, Kavita served as the representative for the foundation's office in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, where she oversaw all of the foundation’s grant making in that region. Before joining Ford, she was the founder and first executive director of the Program on Social Entrepreneurship (PSE), housed at the Centre for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. PSE brings together global leaders in social innovation to share their expertise as practitioners with the academic community. From 1996 to 2010, Kavita served as president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, which grew under her leadership to become the world's largest public foundation for women's rights.

Kavita completed a master's degree in public affairs with a focus on international development from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, a bachelor's degree in politics and international relations from Mount Holyoke, and academic training at Delhi University.