India, Nepal and Sri Lanka

Ajit Kanitkar

Program Officer New Delhi

Ajit Kanitkar works on livelihood and economic security issues in the foundation's New Delhi office. His grant making helps link rural producers and artisans with larger commercial partners to reach markets and realize better wages and incomes. He is focused particularly on expanding opportunities for women, tribal and other marginalized communities.

He joined the Ford Foundation in 2006. Prior to coming to the foundation, Ajit was a program officer with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Delhi and a development consultant in Pune and Delhi. He was also an assistant professor at the Institute of Rural Management in Anand. Earlier, Ajit worked with the foundation's New Delhi office as a consultant to review the development finance and economic security program. He is the author of three books about women entrepreneurs, grassroots entrepreneurship and management of cooperatives in India.

Ajit has a Ph.D. in management from Pune University, where his dissertation focused on entrepreneurship in India's dairy industry. Ajit speaks regularly at national and international conferences on livelihood issues and microfinance.