Meet the team

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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