Smita is President & CEO of Gray Matters Capital (GMC).
Smita believes in the transformational power of human capital combined with business models that blend profit with purpose. She loves to work with teams aligned to a common vision and currently serves on many boards including Gray Matters Capital, Indian School Finance Company, Edfin MicroFinance Bank ( Nigeria) and India Board of Worldreader.
Smita started her career in 2001, with ICICI Bank -one of India's largest private sector bank. She was on the start-up team of transformational consultancy Volans (UK) that helps social entrepreneurs. She headed Research and Performance Management for Community Banking with Standard Bank (South Africa) and was the first employee recruited to the India office of Gray Matters Capital.
At GMC, she architected and led edLABS that provides seed funding to “visionary edu-preneurs” for affordable solutions in domains of 21st century skills, future of learning, skilling and work. She brought behavioural design thinking to GMC that led to the launch of Calibrator to help impact entrepreneurs. She championed many ecosystem initiatives including Quality Charter which has been adopted by the national alliance for affordable private school in the country.
Currently, Smita and her team are focused on investing equity in early-stage enterprises, developing alternate mechanisms to scale and ecosystem initiatives as tools to create pathways for women and girls in the areas of learning, skilling, economic participation and well-being.
Smita has a degree in Engineering and an MBA in Finance from India and a Master's in International Organization from University of Geneva. She has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the US with both for-profit and not for profit institutions.