Our Blog
Upaya Social Ventures Announces Leadership Transition: Kate Cochran to Step Down as CEO; Shruti Goel and AB Chakravarthy Appointed Co-CEOs
Upaya Social Ventures, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting extreme poverty through dignified job creation, today announced a significant leadership transition. Kate Cochran, who has served as CEO since 2016, will step down from her role effective August 1st. She will be succeeded by AB Chakravarthy and Shruti Goel, who will take on the roles of Co-CEOs.
Patiently Coming Full Circle
Upaya added to our initial support for this company, Tamul Plates, and joined with another like minded investor, Artha Impact, the impact investing arm of Rianta Capital Zurich, to place an equity stake in it. At the time, our $27K was a big investment for Upaya.
Giving Money Back To Donors
Upaya has done something novel in the past few weeks – novel for us, at least – we’ve written checks to our donors… and it feels great.
Economic Justice Requires More Than Money Alone
The world has made great strides in cutting extreme poverty in half in the past 20 years, notwithstanding the devastating effects of COVID. But it is also a basic fact that we live on a planet that could easily provide adequate food, shelter and healthcare for our entire population. And yet over 700 million people continue to live in unjust poverty.
Why You Shouldn't Look For An Annual Impact Report From Upaya
You might wonder where Upaya’s impact report is. The truth is, we don't do “an impact report.” That might be surprising given that roughly 10% of our operating budget goes to tracking and analyzing the impact that our portfolio is having in job creation. We don't do an annual report, because we collect and publish data and analysis on a rolling basis all year long.
Covid Reminded Us Not To Become Complacent In Our Mission Against Poverty
For most of Upaya’s existence, our momentum has mirrored a consistent trend of reducing extreme poverty in the world
10 Things We Have Learned In 10 Years
We're taking this opportunity to look back at the many lessons this decade has taught us. When our co-founders (Sachi, Steve, and Sriram) launched Upaya Social Ventures, the world of entrepreneurship and small and growing business support looked very different
Making Space For Strong Women To Be Themselves
In January, Upaya selected and launched a cohort of nine women-led businesses for a special accelerator in collaboration with MIT D-Lab. The focus of this program is to take a holistic approach to build capacity for investment readiness
Let's Not Waste This Crisis
We must take the lessons from the last 30 years of fighting poverty to build a dam against this slide back into poverty for too many. One of those lessons is that people experiencing extreme poverty are not helpless
Now More Than Ever
When the mammoth proportions of the global pandemic became clear, something else became clear to those of us who spend our days thinking about and fighting global poverty. It was clear that this crisis would not hit everyone equally.