Our Team - Earth Focus

Our Advisors

MEET THE TEAM

Aniruddha Mookerjee has spent over 30 years as an ideator, communicator, project planner, and a hands-on manager for wildlife conservation, habitat and sustainable livelihoods projects. He was the Director of Programmes at the Wildlife Trust of India where he designed acclaimed campaigns against Shahtoosh and Whale Shark hunting. He has been working with forest and wildlife dependent communities moving them away to sustainable alternative livelihoods and is a signatory to the Kashmir Pashmina GI. He has designed and set up programs related to wildlife research, crime prevention, and rehabilitation and conservation. He has earlier worked for print and television as a writer and producer. He has been widely published in popular and academic journals and won awards for his writing and films. He lives on the edge of Kanha National Park.

Smita Premchander

Advisor

Smita Premchander is the founder of Sampark, and Adjunct Faculty at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. She is the Chairperson of the International Advisory Committee (the Board) of the United Nations University's Institute of Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn. She is a development practitioner and consultant, and has worked in several countries on issues related to microfinance, labour, rural livelihoods, women's empowerment, social protection, social inclusion, financial inclusion, and sustainable development. She has a Masters in Economics, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, is a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers, and a PhD from the Durham University Business School, UK.

Jehan Bhujwala

Advisor

A lover of wild places and a geologist by training, Jehan grew up in Bombay, where he spent most of his time exploring the western ghats. His arrival in Kanha as an amateur naturalist in his early 20s would be the beginning of a deep connection with the area. In 2004, Jehan and his wife Katie created a wildlife lodge called Shergarh, where environmental sustainability, community awareness and responsible tourism lay at its core, as well as becoming the family home to bring up their two children. Having worked for 25 years within the forest landscape, Jehan offers a valuable insight into the delicate intricacies of the region. He believes that the forests that we have inherited and enjoy today lie in the traditions and beliefs of the ‘original forest conservators’, the Gond and Baiga communities, and that their active participation is the key to ensuring the long-term survival of our forests. In addition to his work and life in Kanha, Jehan is also involved in an exciting wildlife conservation project in his ancestral homeland of Kutch, where he is working on establishing one of India’s first privately-managed Nature Reserves.

Our Founders

MEET THE TEAM

Vipul Gupta

Founder and CEO

Vipul Gupta is the Executive Director of Earth Focus, building on over 40 years of experience in the Central Indian landscape. Prior to Earth Focus, Vipul spent three decades building teams and organisations in the corporate sector, in the realm of manufacturing and distribution. His last venture, Excel Controlinkage, has over 800 employees and exports to 70 countries. He is as comfortable working with tribal communities as he is in board rooms. In parallel, Vipul’s philanthropic journey spans over two decades on girl child education across the country, with a focus on central India. Bringing his business expertise to a new life in the non-profit sector, Vipul works to solve development challenges through a community-driven approach that creates resilient, long-lasting solutions. Through extensive engagement with local communities, civil society organisations, government agencies, and local businesses in Central India, he realised the need to connect the gaps between funding, data and research, and local practitioners - which led to the birth of Earth Focus Foundation’s bottom-up, in-depth approach. Outside of Earth Focus, he also mentors small businesses and individuals on management and strategy. He plays a strategic advisor role at Nature in Focus, a portal on nature, wildlife and conservation. A passionate and awarded nature photographer, Vipul also dabbles in spatial design and process design. Vipul has a BE degree in Mechanical Engineering from Manipal University.

Shalini Gupta

Founder

An avid nature lover, Shalini Gupta has been visiting national parks in India for over three decades. She has a keen interest in community welfare and has been involved in the implementation of CSR activities in rural areas around Nagpur. Over many visits to Kanha, she has developed an affinity for the place and its inhabitants, mainly the communities that live in the buffer zones. At Earth Focus, Shalini is focused on community welfare with particular emphasis on women and child development, as well as providing adequate nutrition and clean drinking water to the residents.

Team

Vibhor Choudhary

Program Manager

Vibhor Chaudhary has over 5 years of experience in the conservation sector. He did his Masters in Development Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. His professional skills straddle environmental conservation, sustainable development and human-wildlife conflict mitigation at grassroots level. Focussed on a community based holistic and sustainable model of conservation, he heads the team as a Program Manager of our three operational teams – restoration, education and communities.

Kishan Puri

Team Member - Program Coordinator

Kishan has over eight years of experience working in the development sector in capacities ranging from watershed management to holistic community development. In his last role as District Program Manager of Samerth in the Kawardha district of Chhattisgarh, he led the program team and worked closely with block and district administration. He brings rich experience of working with tribal communities in Central India.

Prashant Parsai

Team Member - Program Coordinator

Prashant has 16 years of experience in Early Childhood Care and Education sector. He brings rich experience in planning and implementation of education at the grassroots levels . His contribution is remarkable and served many organisations including Aide-et-Action, Eklavya Foundation and Synergy Sansthan. He loves working with the communities being in the lap of nature.With experience in rural education improvement, he currently heads the Education Program at Earth Focus Foundation.

Mary Sonia Titus

Manager- HR & Admin

Mary comes from an extensive background in operations & human resources. She has been a key resource in handling all admin related work for Earth Focus.

Abhaya Balaji

Head of Operations

Abhaya Balaji is the Head of Operations at Earth Focus Foundation (EFF). She has a sound understanding of building organisations, with over 7 years of experience setting up Yoga Netri, which creates yoga programs for corporates in Austin, Texas. With a Master's Degree in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the University of the Arts London, she brings a nuanced understanding of storytelling and visual communication to her work. Abhaya's diverse background uniquely positions her to lead Earth Focus operations with creativity, empathy, and efficiency. She has also worked with Sampark, a 30-year-old NGO working on upliftment of women, on communications and fundraising. She was a visiting professor at Symbiosis International University in Pune and started her career as a photojournalist, working with organizations like Thomson Reuters, Magnum Photos, and others.

JOIN THE TRIBE

We love our work, and welcome enthusiastic, creative, or just curious people to join our tribe. It will be great to have you with us. Warmest welcome! To stay updated about all the action as it unfolds, join the tribe.

Our Advisors

Our Founders

Team

JOIN THE TRIBE

Registered Office

Project Office