Hardika Shah is the Founder & CEO of Kinara Capital, a social impact company addressing financial inclusion for small business entrepreneurs in India. Kinara Capital transforms lives, livelihoods and local economies by providing fast and flexible loans without property collateral to small business entrepreneurs in India. Led by a women-majority management team, Kinara Capital has impacted over half a million lives in India. Prior to launching Kinara Capital, Hardika spent two decades as a management consultant with Accenture, driving billion-dollar client projects across multiple industries around the globe. She has a decade of involvement in the social entrepreneurship field as a mentor with Santa Clara University, Stanford University, Accenture Development Partnerships, the Acumen Fund, and Columbia Business School.Recognized for her innovative and pioneering work with Kinara, Hardika was honored as an Ashoka Fellow by the prestigious Ashoka Foundation, she received the Financial Inclusion award from the Sankalp Foundation, and won the people’s choice Live Audience award at the Wall Street Journal Financial Inclusion event among other accolades. Hardika Shah earned her MBA from Columbia Business School and Haas School of Business joint program. She earned a B.A. in Computer Science from Knox College in Illinois.

Responsible for organizing alumni events in the Bay Area focused on sharing the latest findings and thought leadership from Columbia Business School's Social Enterprise Program's research work coupled with guest speakers and panels that can bring the practical viewpoint to the mix.

 Delivered deal shaping and pricing of over 200 deals across internet, high tech and communication clients in US and Canada. Negotiated profit margins, deal terms, and coached deal makers across 80+ North America client account teams on how to structure and close deals that met Accenture’s financial objectives. Coached 50+ North America Senior Executives on best practices in market pricing, competitive intelligence and win strategies.  Initiated and implemented an internal database of pricing information that spans 500+ cross industry deal components as a source of benchmark pricing and deal information that is used to drive Accenture’s global pricing approach.

 Mentored 10 social enterprises from US, India, and Africa across healthcare, internet, drinking water and fair trade products. Evaluated each enterprise’s business model, market segmentation, competitive landscape and value propositions. Impacted growth and sustainability plans including: rollout and implementation of 4000 internet kiosks (4X) in rural India, first of its kind artisanal product store targeting the Indian socially conscious consumer with 20% equity stake reserved for artisans; growth from 30 to 500 clean water drinking plants; and 75 ambulances for a 911 healthcare service in Mumbai.

 Analyzed and advised 9 Indian drinking water social enterprises onsite in rural villages and urban slums and provided recommendations for each venture’s business model, financial projections, growth plans.  Conducted consumer research by visiting clean water installations in 4 different states to understand the overall landscape of consumer needs, buying behaviors, willingness and affordability, and competitive factors. Results include: Implementation of a revised business model for a project stalled for 2 years that generated income for 4-5 women entrepreneurs, technical data solution to evaluate usage patterns to create an efficient supply chain operation and reduce pilferage.

 Led the launch and expansion of a new business opportunity for Accenture to offer Embedded Software Services to its high tech clients.  Worked with 100+ client account team members globally to raise internal and client awareness about Accenture’s new market launch.  Implemented 5 road shows for specific geographies (Nordics, US, and Japan) that generated qualified leads and resulted in $12M of new top line revenue.  Defined and created market offerings such as the Embedded Software Diagnostics Toolkit which won our first Asia-Pac client.  Evaluated top 10 alliance opportunities for joint wireless market entry and selected partner for pilot implementation in Aerospace & Defense.

 Led the turnaround of a troubled project facing client dissatisfaction with a customized application for Microsoft’s Sales and Marketing group to manage and showcase their brand and track global PR.  Managed a 30+ person onshore/offshore team and $1M P&L to deliver the new product on time and achieve strong customer satisfaction

 Led internal strategy to determine the cause of negative margins and low client satisfaction.  Increased client facing sales activities by forging relationships and generating demand from 10 new business groups.  Scaled the team from 30 to 200 to support newly generated demand.  Made Accenture profitable, going from loss of -50% to profit of 15% over target, and to the #1 spot in client satisfaction amongst 5 other providers in 8 months.  Successfully lobbied internally to setup an Accenture Delivery Center in Hyderabad to support Microsoft and attract business from other Fortune 100 companies.  Spearheaded people initiatives leading to highest retention statistics amongst all providers and other Accenture Delivery Centers.  Established a local PMO and instituted client delivery processes. Today that delivery center manages over 3500+ resources and supports 50+ clients.

 Created and gained Board approval on business case to improve customer penetration by benchmarking current customer strategies, identifying revenue loss opportunities and defining a solution to generate incremental revenue.  Delivered cross functional integrated customer insight solution that achieved $10+M in incremental revenue and improved customer satisfaction scores in year 1 from increased penetration in NetApp’s strategic accounts.

 Implemented ecommerce solution for Cadence’s 3000+ customer base to purchase and download software licenses on demand that achieved $95M in additional top line revenue. Saved additional $30M per year by reducing operational material shipping costs and decreased labor costs.

 Evaluated Kana’s Online ASP business model and determined not financially viable.  Recommended CEO close down Kana’s online business which was implemented within a year.