Vanita Bhargava

Biography

Vanita Bhargava is the Senior Advisor to the Council's President & CEO. She serves as a thought partner to senior leadership and manages a number of projects, all of which are focused on the Council impact in the shifting social change and philanthropic landscape. Prior to joining the Council, Vanita worked with a broad range of organizations including Pew Charitable Trusts, Kaiser Permanente, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Playworks, and the Boston Ballet. Most recently she was a partner with Onward, a consulting firm that assists non profits to solve problems and manage change. She received a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a master in public policy degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Prior to moving to the DC area, Vanita served as the senior program officer at the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health in Palo Alto, California. She helped launch the foundation’s grantmaking program. In her time at the foundation, she managed an $11.4 million portfolio of grants for youth development and early childhood programs. She worked with a diverse set of grantees–from grassroots non profits to multi-million dollar institutions–to help them deliver measurable impact in a timely manner.ner.

Vanita is an active community member and school volunteer and has served on the boards of the Youth Leadership Institute and Playworks. In her personal life, she enjoys travel, photography, puzzles of all sorts, and most of all, listening to the laughter of her husband and two children