Chairman cum Managing Director : Mr. S.R. Sinha has over 30 years of banking, finance and insurance experience in commercial banking, housing finance and insurance companies. An alumnus of the Faculty of Management Science (FMS), Delhi University, Mr. Sinha was the founding Managing Director of Maharashi Housing Development Finance Ltd (MHDFL) from 1996 to 2002, an NBFC, promoted by the Maharishi Foundation. MHDFL became a very strong player in the first 3 years of operations with the best growth rate in the housing finance sector and a 100% recovery record. The company grew from Rs 200 million to Rs 1,000 million in less than 4 years under his innovative and dynamic leadership, and was then purchased by ICICI Housing Finance Company. Mr. Sinha subsequently worked for Lord Krishna Bank, as Senior Vice President, retail assets, and Centurion Bank of Punjab, where he was Country Head - Cross-Sell. Four years ago, Mr. Sinha returned to Bihar and set up Saija Consultants Private Limited, a franchisee office of Reliance Life. Over the last four years, the company has generated over Rs 100 million in business premium.

Starting his career as a Management trainee with the DCM group in the year 1980, Mr. Sinha served in the General Insurance sector for nearly a decade before moving into the Home Finance and retail banking space. Mr. Sinha has attended Harvard Business School’s program on “Strategic Leadership in Microfinance” in 2011.

Mr. Sinha has now relinquished his day to day duties with Saija Consultants Private Limited and is now fully dedicated to Saija Finance and its microfinance operations.

Director, HR and Non Financial Linkages : Ms. Rashmi Sinha is the wife of Mr. S.R.Sinha and a promoter director of Saija Finance Pvt.Ltd. She has over 29 years of experience in the field of human resources and management education. For 18 of those years, she worked at the Steel Authority of India Limited, the leading public sector steel giant, in the area of HR. Apart from exposure to the various areas of HR, Ms. Sinha  participated  as a member of  the Core Team in Turn Around strategies for SAIL. She was involved in implementation of a New HR Initiative at SAIL involving revised performance management systems, training and development initiatives and plant level study of various productivity parameters. Ms. Sinha has also been involved as visiting and permanent faculty in reputed management institutes across Delhi. She has been conducting successful workshops on leadership, interpersonal effectiveness, change management, effective communication and team work.

She has a number of publications to her credit which have found place in reputed management journals.  Apart from attending a number of training and workshops both as a participant and facilitator, she has also attended the program on “Strategic Leadership in Microfinance” being organized by the prestigious Harvard Business School in year 2010.

She is an Economics Graduate from Lady Sriram College, Delhi University and MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University.

Independent Director - Mr. Ravi Shankar is the Co-Founder & CEO of Credit Market Services Ltd, a joint initiative with Financial Technologies India Ltd for setting up an interesting business model. He is a financial professional with rich experience and over 25 years in the Banking Financial Services and Insurance industry. Mr. Shankar takes an active role in developing risk management techniques and has conducted major seminars and training courses in risk management and Basel II regulation. Before Credit Market Services Ltd, he was Managing Director at the Asia-Pacific division of Standard & Poors, Risk Solutions, the global rating agency. In his earlier capacity as CFO of CRISIL, Mr. Ravishankar was responsible for the Treasury Management & Strategic initiatives of CRISIL. He was also involved in a number of strategic activities related to `Shareholder Wealth Creation’. Mr. Ravi Shankar has held several assignments as President & Chief Executive Officer, Polaris Retail Infotech Ltd., Chief Executive Officer of Cholamandalam Cazenove Mutual Fund, Fund Manager & Vice President at Reliance Mutual Fund, Chief Investment Officer of GIC Mutual Fund, etc.

Accion Nominee

ACCION India Country Head: Mr. Siddhartha Chowdri brings a wealth of knowledge and microfinance expertise to his position as ACCION International's advisor for India. In the summer of 2004 he worked in San Jose, Costa Rica as an intern at Profund International, Inc./CALMEADOW, a microfinance investment fund managing company. While at Profund he authored a technical paper on Latin American commercial institutions' participation in microfinance, analyzed competitive microfinance environments throughout Latin America, and wrote grant proposals to secure capital that would provide assistance to microfinance institutions facing liquidity crises.
                     Prior to his work in Costa Rica, Siddhartha resided in Hyderabad, India. From 2002-2003 he consulted for the Society for Elimination of World Poverty in Hyderabad, a World Bank partner agency implementing a $300MM rural development project. At the Society he trained over 100 field staff in livelihood enhancement strategies and methods of coordination between banks and village organizations, worked with multiple women's Self-Help groups to identify income-generating activities, and conducted a pilot micro lending program with established Indian banks to encourage lending at the village level. Siddhartha's extensive experience also includes two years as an associate at the Calvert Social Investment Foundation in Bethesda, MD, and two years as a research assistant at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C. He holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago

Mr. Hannes Manndorff Dr. Hannes Manndorff has been with ACCION International since 2001 and is currently seconded as CEO to YES SAMPANN, a Mumbai based microfinance institution.  He has managed numerous technical assistance relationships with ACCION partners in India and Africa.  Before joining ACCION, he worked as a microfinance consultant for different international organizations in Europe and in Southern Africa, where he lived for three years.  He holds a PhD in Development Economics and an MBA from Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. .