Meet the team

Dr. Kalpana Sankar | Chairperson and Managing Trustee, Hand in Hand India

Dr Kalpana Sankar

Most Hand in Hand leaders have backgrounds in finance or development. Not Hand in Hand co-founder Dr Kalpana Sankar, who earned her PhD not in economics or development studies, but in nuclear physics.

“Right from the beginning, Hand in Hand presented a strong rationale for any funding we sought from donors,” says Kalpana, explaining the link between splitting atoms and splitting group savings funds. “Scientific thinking underpins our work.”

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Percy Barnevik

“Even when they’re undernourished, downtrodden and illiterate, [our entrepreneurs] have an enormous will. When they get a chance, they’re not letting it go by,” says Percy Barnevik. “These women can move mountains.”

At 79, Barnevik knows a thing or two about seizing chances. Before co-founding Hand in Hand with Dr Kalpana Sankar in 2003, a move that would catalyse the creation of millions of small businesses, he ran some of the biggest companies in the world.

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Jen Glyn

Head of Marketing and Communications

Jane Sabuni

Country Manager, Hand in Hand Eastern Africa

Meet our trustees

Entrepreneurialism is in Hand in Hand’s DNA. Our trustees have decades of experience at the helm of some of Europe’s biggest companies.