About
Executive leadership
Two professors, a banker who moved to Bhubaneswar, and a team that mostly came up through the centres.
Prof. Mukti Mishra
Co-founder & Chairman
MA, MBA, PhD (Victoria, Melbourne). Adjunct Professor at Victoria University Melbourne, MDI Gurugram and XLRI Jamshedpur.
Twenty-five years of experience across the oil industry, teaching, training, research and consultancy.
Chairman and co-founder of Centurion University and Gram Tarang, Prof. Mishra is recognised nationally and internationally in the skills ecosystem. His work drives the design and implementation of the Centurion–Gram Tarang model, recognised by the Ministry of Skill Development as a Centre of Excellence.
Prof. D.N. Rao
Co-founder & Vice President
BE (Civil), PGDM (IIM Calcutta), British Chevening Scholar. Founder of the consultancy wing at Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar.
Consultant to international and national agencies including DFID, HIVOS, GTZ, the Ministry of Power and several state governments, with years of grassroots work in Odisha's most remote districts. A key figure at XIMB, he led flagship projects for CENDRET.
As co-founder, Prof. Rao keeps both institutions at the edge of technology and relevant to industry with Industry 4.0 skills, and drives partnerships including Dassault and Unity.
Abhinav Madan
Co-founder & Managing Director
BSc Physics (St Stephen's College), MBA Finance. Seven years with GE and HP in Bangalore and Amsterdam.
Worked across financial planning, asset management, project management, business intelligence and analytics before co-founding Gram Tarang with his two professors in 2009 and moving to Bhubaneswar to build the organisation from scratch.
He brings an analytics background to delivery and operations, keeping the team focused on the metrics that have held Gram Tarang on a sustainable growth path since 2010.
Swagatika Mohapatra
Deputy Managing Director
International Masters in Human Resource Management, Western Sydney University. A decade of corporate experience across Australia and India.
Joined Gram Tarang in 2014. Her focus is team performance and a culture of continuous learning, empowering teams across multiple business units and mentoring young leaders towards greater organisational impact.
Parthasarathi Mohanty
Chief Operating Officer
Twenty-eight years across manufacturing setup, skill development and operational excellence. Commercial pilot with 600 hours of solo flying.
Established six manufacturing units for Samsung Corporation in various countries and led the garments quality team at Li & Fung. As a senior consultant with the Ministry of Textiles he implemented skill development programmes with government schemes and partners.
Since joining Gram Tarang he has led multiple skill development projects and established manufacturing setups. As COO he oversees production and quality assurance, and is developing SMART manufacturing units.
Debasish Panda
Director — Finance & Operations
BE Computer Science, MBA Finance. Fourteen years with PwC and IBM across Australia, Singapore, Europe, the USA and India.
Joined Gram Tarang in 2016. As Director of Finance and Operations he brings project management and mentoring to the organisation, with a focus on collaboration and on new frontiers in India's skilling ecosystem.
Sadat Ali
Technical Director
BTech, MTech (IIT Kharagpur). Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Dean, School of Vocational Training, Centurion University.
One of Gram Tarang's first employees, Sadat set up training operations at the Paralakhemundi campus. He leads curriculum development, pedagogy and training of trainers for technical trades, and the implementation of the Mini Tool Room project with the Government of Odisha.
Aditya Saikia
Director, Strategy & Growth (1980–2021)
In memoriam
Economics, St Stephen's College Delhi. PGD International Business, ABS Netherlands. Eleven years in investment banking with Rothschild.
Aditya joined Gram Tarang after six years as an equity capital markets and M&A banker in London, then Rothschild India in Mumbai and Delhi. Based in Guwahati, he led the rollout of Assam and North East operations, now five centres, then set up the Delhi office and led the pan-India NSQF Schools project and the Punjab centres.
During Covid he scaled up the work-integrated skill training and apprenticeship programme, and became CEO of the edtech startup Lernern. He was lost to Covid in the second wave in May 2021, and is missed by colleagues and by the thousands of students he taught.