Manisha Gupta
About
Founder and CEO, Start Up!Manisha began her career in journalism, but a chance encounter led her into the world of social entrepreneurship. For nearly 30 years, she has chronicled and contributed to the growth of India’s social entrepreneurship ecosystem. She spent a decade at Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, rising from intern to India Country Representative and International Director for youth programs. She helped build India’s first collaborative community of social entrepreneurs. In 2009, she founded Start Up!, an impact accelerator and ecosystem builder that supports social entrepreneurs through strategy, design, leadership, and learning. Over 12 years, she and her team have helped seed and scale 100+ social ventures across 17 states and trained more than 400 cultural and social innovators to build sustainable impact. For over 13 years, she has led due diligence for the India Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, co-hosted by the Schwab Foundation, World Economic Forum, and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation. This experience has given her deep insight into how innovators scale, stumble, and persevere. She draws strength from women leaders transforming India from the grassroots and has co-authored two books spotlighting powerful stories of social change.
[Day 1]
03:15 - 04:00 PM
Theme: Building a Mentoring Movement Across India’s Social Sector