25: Sejal Desai: Working Tirelessly For Both Her Homes

Send a textSejal Desai‘s is a riveting story of dedication and drive. She is an admirable steward of both the Indian and American parts of her identity. With a passion now for her nonprofit work, Sejal has had a long and varied career which has helped build an outlook that makes her embrace with pride her heritage as well as her adopted home. Sejal is the Executive Director of Akanksha Education Fund, an education nonprofit that runs public private partnership schools in India for children from low income communities. She has been a passionate advocate and supporter of various US and India based nonprofits focusing on education, hunger relief and women’s issues. Her 30-year career includes work in sectors like venture capital, M&A, accounting, entrepreneurship, nonprofit and corporate social responsibility. Among other career highlights, she was a co-founder of a tech incubator, STARTech, she also started a social venture, SevaYatra focused on engaging US-based universities and multinational corporations with India based NGOs.  Sejal was named Woman of the Year by the Greater Dallas Asian American Chamber of Commerce in 2019, and also won the Dallas Business Journal Women in Business Award in 2019 and the Audrey Kaplan Inspiring WOMEN of the Southwest award. Sejal truly is a shining example of balance, be it work-life/home-life, home culture/adopted culture, ambition/grounded-ness, and satisfaction/aspirations. I hope listening to this inspires the listeners as much as it did me.Sejal’s organization:Akanksha Education Fund – Giving and Getting Involved in the U.S.https://youtu.be/2VDcxkQlWUY?si=5eYtshKq6POnlsRvIndian Philanthropy Alliancehttps://www.indiaphilanthropyalliance.org/More about Sejal at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sejaldesai?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFollow me on Facebook and Instagram to stay connected and for more podcast episode updates:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bindia.puri.1Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indianamericanexperience