BURLINGTON, MA—An independent committee of 11 judges honored Cambridge Community Foundation CEO Geeta Pradhan with the Woman of the Year 2024 award for her contributions and strategic leadership of the 110-year-old foundation, which focuses on solving the City of Cambridge’s pressing problems growing inequality.
“We were impressed by Ms. Pradhan’s leadership in transformation Cambridge Community Foundation from a local grant maker to a strategic civic leader, and by her keen understanding of core civic and economic issues faced by the City of Cambridge and the society in general,” said entrepreneur and philanthropist Vivek Sharma, who led the panel of 11 judges. “Judging committee was humbled with the process and on learning about the 10 amazing women, their efforts and the impact it is making in the communities we are all part of.”
Here are brief bios of the 11 judges:
Vivek Arora
Mr. Arora is a partner in McKinsey’s Boston office. He became a partner at the Boston office of McKinsey at age 34 and remains one of the firm’s youngest associates.
Mr. Arora works with several global Biopharma / Life Sciences companies in the developed and emerging markets on topics related to Strategy, Growth, Operations transformation, Quality improvement, Cost excellence, M&A and Organization design.
Prior to McKinsey, Mr. Arora worked at ITC Ltd. (FMCG conglomerate in India) as Capex Manager of the Tobacco Division- Responsible for technology strategy, capital procurement and project management across the division.
Sam Bhambhani
Mr. Bhambhani is a veteran executive in the photonics science industry and has worked in market development of hi-tech laser applications in medical devices, aerospace, automotive, and other manufacturing industries for over 26 years. Currently he is an independent consultant to the industry and serves on advisory boards of various companies in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Mr. Bhambhani completed his engineering at the esteemed BITS, Pilani in India before moving to the United States for his MBA. He is also the co-founder and the lead guitarist of the popular Boston based band Din Check. The band has been playing in the New England area for over 12 years and has now gone national by booking performances in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Texas. He has been playing the guitar since he was 13 and has kept up his passion for music by playing in several bands over the years.
Java Joshi
Ms. Joshi, Ph. D., is the Founder and CEO of Burlington, MA-based Academy of Creative Arts. Java loves to share her passion for art through exhibiting her work across the globe and sharing learnings from all her experiences through teaching. Born in India, at a young age Ms. Joshi earned several accolades in addition to earning Masters in Fine Arts and Ph.D. in Drawing & Painting from India and Masters in Multimedia and Web design from Atlanta, USA. Java has also been involved with theater since childhood and has acted in over 200+ theater, TV & short film productions. Her objective is to spread the love of art among children and create the next generation of artists.
To achieve her mission of spreading the love for art and enabling the next generation, she started the Academy of Creative Arts which is a school where 30+ different creative and performing art programs focused on Indian & Asian art forms such as Art of Drawing & Painting, Ceramic, Indian Music programs for Tabla and Hindustani Vocal, Dance forms like Kathak, Bollywood, Bharatnatyam, Bhangra, Odissi, Workshops for Public Speaking, Theatre & Acting, Henna, Photography etc. are all taught under one roof at academy’s 18000 sq.ft facility in Burlington. The goal behind the academy is to become a one stop shop and a platform for all things art creating opportunities to learn, perform and showcase. The Academy caters to the needs of students ranging from 3 to 73 years. Academy has served over 8000 students across different programs so far and has also become a hub for the entire New England community to come together, be it for education, social causes or events.
Ms. Kachroo is an award-winning Film producer, Poet, Lyricist, and film writer. She has worked with renowned artists like Shankar Mahadevan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sonu Nigam, Harshdeep Kaur, Ali Sethi, Ankit Tiwari, Anuradha Palakurthi, Jasraj Joshi, Yawar Abdal, Noor Mohd. and Hrishikesh Ranade. She has written screenplay, dialogues for many films, including award-winning critically acclaimed feature films like Half Widow, The Illegal and an upcoming musical ‘The songs of Paradise”
Ms. Kachroo was born and brought up in Kashmir. She holds a master’s degree in computer science from Pune University. She moved to the US for work in 2000. Her first poem was published at the age of 15, and ever since she has continued writing and exploring different forms of poetic expressions like Kavita, English Poems, Nazms and Dohe. She has been invited to US Capitol Hill, Harvard University, Ayodhya for Poetry and Music Performances. Her work has been featured on Rolling Stones and National Parks Service , a federal agency. She is a published author of two books and she is working on her third book.
Farida Kathawalla
Ms. Kathawalla is a long-term supporter of the nonprofit community and philanthropy. Having lived all over the world with her family, her interest in world cultures, women’s rights and global education became even more important. She is at the forefront of many philanthropic organizations in the region including New England International Donors, American India Foundation, World Education, Dining for Women, New Repertory theatre and Care amongst others.
Ms. Kathawala is deeply passionate about women’s empowerment. She is relentless about finding new and creative ways to channel her boundless energy coupled with the community’s ideas and resources for the greater good. She is also the co-founder of Circle of Hope under the AIF umbrella.
Dr. Sonal Pandya, MD
Dr. Pandya is a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center and specializes in Plastic & Reconstructive surgery. Her clinical Interests include Body Contouring, Botox & Fillers, Breast Surgery, Eyelid Surgery (Blepharoplasty), Laser & Facial Rejuvenation, and Surgical Wound Treatment.
Dr. Pandya, who received her medical degree from Bombay University, also serves as Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Tufts University School of Medicine.
Bhaskar Panigrahi
Mr. Panigrahi is chair of TiE Boston’s flagship TiECON East 2024. He has 25 years as a serial entrepreneur and investor building successful organizations in clean energy and software/IT space.
He is currently Chairman and CEO of ConnectM Technology Solutions – a vertically integrated clean energy technology company electrifying homes, businesses, and transportation by leveraging its Energy Intelligence Network.
He is also an investor and board member in CCI Energy/Fairhaven Wind, One Way VC, Sure Ventures, BluStream Corp, and Blue Cloud Ventures. Prior companies as Chairman/CEO include Cambridge Clean Energy, Cambridge Technology Enterprises, CellExchange, E-Solutions, and Unique Computing.
Eshani Shah
Ms. Shah is a co-owner of S4 Inc., a consulting firm providing innovative, responsive, and complete solutions to the US Government, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Defense (DoD) customers.
She has been a part of local Indian community in Boston since 1984. She joined GURJAR – Gujarati Association of NE. and has served the committee for over 20 years, including 2 years as the President. She has organized big successful events for GURJAR and raised funds for numerous causes and organizations.
She is also the owner of an Entertainment/Event Management company called “Dhoom Entertainment” which promotes performing arts locally and nationally, inviting plays, poets, artist, and musical bands from India. Ms. Shah is also an accomplished actress.
Kim Shah
Mr. Shah is CEO of CREDA Health, whose mission is to address the critical care gap by enabling a continuum of care between patient and provider.
Prior to founding CERDA, Mr. Shah served as global director of marketing at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He has also served in high-level positions with Sciformix, Convoq, e-tractions, Micrografx, and IBM/Lotus Development.
Mr. Shah holds a B.Sc. from Imperial College London, and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
Vivek Sharma (Chair of the WOY Judging Committee 2024)
Mr. Sharma has over 25 years global operational experience with 15 years of success in private equity, CEO and and Board Member roles and a track record of spearheading enterprise turnaround and organizational restructuring initiatives that position global businesses for profitable, sustainable, and scalable growth.
Mr Sharma has been CEO of multiple global pharma services and pharma tech companies which includes Saama Technologies, Decision Resources Group, Adare Pharma Solutions and Piramal Healthcare. Mr. Sharma is also Executive Chairman of Apollo Intelligence and board member at Corro Health. Prior to this Mr. Sharma was a partner at THL Partners, a Boston based Private Equity firm.
Lalit Sudan
Mr. Sudan is a Managing Director of Market Data Group LLC, and volunteer President of Vision-Aid. For the past two decades, he has been an advisor to senior management teams at several leading global Information Technology & Networking companies. In these consulting roles, he guided their entry into several new global business initiatives to create profitable growth.
As Senior Vice President at Fujitsu Consulting, and during his engagements with Compaq, HP, and several startups, he worked closely with their teams to formulate strategies for competitive advantage. He directed due diligence for US and India based acquisitions and managed their integration that resulted in accretive revenues and profitability by focusing on good customer and combined employee experiences.
Before starting Market Data Group Consulting in 1997, he worked for Digital Equipment Corporation, Motorola Codex and Honeywell where he launched and grew several new worldwide businesses. Noteworthy among them was the Digital and Microsoft Alliance Computing initiative that led to significant wins in numerous worldwide accounts.
