Pooja Rao

Pooja Rao

Pooja Rao is the Director of Project DEEP, India’s only non-profit focused on reshaping cash based policies as a pathway to economic mobility and social prosperity. She has played a pivotal role in defining its strategy, strengthening philanthropic and policy partnerships, and building its operational model. Pooja is a social impact leader with 15 years of experience across strategy, fundraising, and program design, in the areas of gender, adolescent wellbeing, and the rights of marginalized communities. Previously, Pooja was part of the leadership team at Dasra, where she worked closely with philanthropists, nonprofit leaders, and government stakeholders to strengthen systems and shift narratives around youth issues in India, impacting over 22 million lives. At Enable India, she launched award winning, scalable initiatives to enhance livelihoods for persons with disabilities. Her earlier roles at Dream a Dream and the Azim Premji Foundation reflect her long standing commitment to inclusion and systems thinking. Her work is driven by a deep commitment to dismantling top-down structures in development and philanthropy, and to amplifying proximate leadership and local feminist perspectives. She holds an MBA from the Indian School of Business, an MSc from Texas A&M University and is a certified creative arts therapist.