Dr. Chowdhury was the Vice-Chair of BRAC, one of world’s largest non-governmental organisations. Previously, he was its Executive Director, founding Director of the Research and Evaluation Division and founding Dean of the James P. Grant School of Public Health at BRAC University. Dr. Chowdhury is also a professor at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. During 2009-2012, he served as a senior adviser to the Rockefeller Foundation, based in Thailand. He is on the boards of several organisations and initiatives, including the South Asia Centre at London School of Economics and is current chair of Asia-Pacific Action Alliance on Human Resources for Health (AAAH). He was a coordinator of the UN Millennium Task Force on Child Health and Maternal Health. He is a recipient of the ‘Innovator of the Year 2006’ award from the Marriott Business School of Brigham Young University, the PESON oration medal from Perinatal Society of Nepal in 2008 and Outstanding Leadership Award from Dhaka University Statistics Department Alumni Association. He has a wide interest in development, particularly in the areas of education, public health and poverty eradication. Dr Chowdhury holds a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Dhaka.

Mr. Ashok Ranjan Samal, Retired General Manager of SIDBI, has been a career development banker with more than 3 decades of professional experience of working with erstwhile IDBI and SIDBI, two premiere development financial institutions of India. Development Finance, including  capacity building of stake holders  comprised a core area of his expertise spanning for more than 15 years in Executive positions.

He was also posted as General Manager  at SIDBI Kolkata for 5 years during which he was responsible for developing/strengthening Micro Finance