Satish Kalra

Regional Director, South Asia

Satish Kalra is an engineer by education. He completed his under and postgraduate studies in India and worked for over 30 years in senior management positions with Unilever and Ciba-Geigy in India, Switzerland and lastly Singapore — where, by his own admission, he was bitten by the 'cleft bug' and decided to join The Smile Train as Regional Director for South Asia. "There is something inherently addictive about working with kids, watching their lives being transformed, their faces light up with smiles that make you want to carry on," he said. There are now 120 partner hospitals in India and Sri Lanka. Under Satish's leadership, The Smile Train has provided over 100,000 free cleft reconstructive surgeries on kids who would otherwise never been able to afford them.

Satish can be reached at satish_kalra@satyam.net.in.

Dr. Ashish Sabharwal

Dr. Ashish Sabharwal is a medical doctor who brings along vast and varied experience ranging from Public Health, corporate and pharmaceutical marketing, family practice, medical journalism, and is also an office bearer of the Indian Medical Association. In that capacity he has been a regular contributor in various forums on national health policy and delivery of more equitable quality health systems.

With his extensive network amongst medical professionals in both public and private sectors, and his strong personal commitment to the cause of helping cleft affected children he has been able to mobilize resources to significantly enhance the presence of The Smile Train in Northern India since October 2006.

Renu Mehta

Renu Mehta is a commerce graduate with a professional degree in Human Resources, Renu Mehta brings over 11 years experience in the health & social development sectors. Prior to joining The Smile Train she worked as Program Manager with a European Charity - Christoffel Blindenmission (CBM) at their South Asia Regional Office (North) where she was responsible for addressing the needs of the development sector, in terms of strategies developing new partners, planning and budgeting yearly financial and training needs, execution of plans and implementation, monitoring, reporting, accounts and statistical analysis of their programs.

She joined The Smile Train in October 2006 and is currently responsible for the states of Uttar Pradesh and Eastern and North Eastern India, aggressively working towards expanding the reach and depth of cleft programs.

Mamtaa Carrol

Mamtaa Carrol brings extensive experience in community social responsibility (CSR) and developmental communications. She has consulted extensively on CSR initiatives across industries/sectors including the Centre for Science and Environment, the United Nations, the corporate sector and ad agencies. These assignments have also included PR, event management, project management, environmental education, exhibition organization, outreach programs, healthcare awareness, and paralegal aid to underprivileged sections of society in the rural and semi-urban areas of India.

Mamtaa is married, and lives in New Delhi.

Dr. Mahbubul Hannan

Dr. Mahbubul Hannan is a Medical Graduate from Germany.

He brings extensive work experience of more than 20 years in the areas of project management in child rights, HIV/AIDS, Maternal and Child Health and Primary Health Care in diverse organizations like TDH (Netherlands), UNICEF, and Save the Children-Australia among others. Most recently he was engaged as National HIV/AIDS Consultant at World Vision Bangladesh that works for the welfare of poor children, their families and communities throughout the country.

His expertise and experience in program design, implementation, advocacy and awareness campaigns to build a better world for poor and disadvantaged children will be great asset as he takes on his new and most challenging assignment to expand Smile Train’s footprint in Bangladesh.

Pooja Basu

Pooja comes with twelve years of hands-on Operations Management experience with large international companies like Dell International Services, LambWeston, Birla Global & Hewlett Packard - Brigade. Educated at Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hospitality Management, where she majored in Management & Finance but opted for a corporate career in the fast emerging IT sector in India. Seven out of her 12 corporate years were spent in leading large technical support teams at Dell & HP-Brigade, where she was also involved in initiating and sustaining Corporate Social Responsibility programs.

Boarding the Smile Train, she admits, was a joyful decision. "Smile Train is a blessing not only for the children who carry forth the smiles but more so, for those, who get the wonderful opportunity to be part of the journey of creating smiles... one at a time."