Ananth Padmanabhan

Chief Executive Officer, Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives

Ananth is the Chief Executive Officer of Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI), a grant making arm of Mr. Premji’s efforts to contribute to a just, equitable, sustainable and humane society. (www.azimpremjiphilanthropicinitiatives.org). Ananth was earlier the Chief Executive of the Nobel Prize winning global Human Rights watchdog Amnesty International in India. He was the Head of Teacher Education at the Azim Premji Foundation, with the mandate to transform the quality of teacher education in the country. He was with Greenpeace the longest time; as International Programme Director and earlier to that as CEO of Greenpeace India. He started his work life as a teacher in The School – Krishnamurti Foundation India. During the role as teacher he developed the curriculum for ISC (Class XII) Environmental Studies Course; till date, the only Environmental Studies course offered on an All-India basis. Ananth graduated in 1988 from IIT Madras with a B Tech in Electrical Engineering.