Nilima Achwal,
Founder & CEO, Iesha

Nilima Achwal is the founder of Iesha Learning. Iesha has a fun, interactive digitized curriculum on sexuality and gender, that teachers can use in the classroom on smartboard and computer. Iesha’s course – 10 modules for 6th-8th standard boys and girls – goes far beyond giving knowledge, to changing attitudes and behaviors in youth, helping them to create a new gender-equal India.

Previously, Nilima has worked in leadership capacities across advisory, field-level, and research roles that lie in the intersection of entrepreneurship and social impact. She launched and ran social enterprise accelerator program SEED at Villgro Innovations Foundation in Chennai, helping early-stage social entrepreneurs to strengthen their business models and raise seed funding.

She has also developed business case studies for faculty at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and assessed the impact of micro-loans on microfinance borrowers in Bolivia as a Kiva Fellow. Nilima graduated with distinction in Economics and Spanish from the University of Michigan.