The Team
Kusuma is supported by a dynamic team of highly skilled individuals pooled from a variety of backgrounds including business, NGO’s and academic institutions:
Dr. Soma Pujari – Founder and Trustee Kusuma Trust (UK)
John Rhodes - Chairman of Kusuma Trust (UK)
Andrew Hutton – Trustee of Kusuma Trust (UK)
Prashant Jain – Trustee of Kusuma Trust (UK)
Joey Garcia – Trustee of Kusuma Trust (Gibraltar)
Kusuma is also aided by its Advisory Board, a panel of experts who consult Kusuma on strategic decisions and project selection. Its members are:
Below please find a small biography of our key team members:
Dr. Soma Pujari – Founder and Trustee Kusuma Trust (UK)
Dr. Soma Pujari and her husband Anurag Dikshit founded the Kusuma Trust in order to reorganise the family’s direct charitable giving into a more structured, scaled and long term approach. Their sense of social responsibility has inspired the family to take steps in changing the fortunes of society’s underprivileged. Dr. Pujari continues to be very involved with the activities of the Trust and provides strategic direction.
John Rhodes – Chairman of Kusuma Trust (UK)
John read law at Jesus College, Cambridge before joining Macfarlanes, a City of London law firm where he worked from 1968 to 2008. He specialised in advising wealthy UK and international families on trusts, tax, philanthropic and estate planning issues. Between school and university John worked for a year as a VSO volunteer in Northern Nigeria and he has been a VSO supporter ever since. For about 15 years he also worked as a volunteer and then Chairman of the Management Committee of a Legal Aid Centre in South London. Since leaving Macfarlanes in 2008 John has expanded the number of his charity trusteeships. Apart from KT (UK) he is also trustee of Arnold Foundation,Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust, Tree Aid, The Lister Foundation for Preventive Medicine and Howard Henley Memorial Trust. He is also a consultant with the international trust group Stonehage, where he is one of the London team supporting Stonehage Philanthropy Services.
Andrew Hutton – Trustee of Kusuma Trust (UK)
Andrew Hutton is an independent investment advisor and Director of A.J. Hutton Ltd which he established in 2007. Prior to establishing his own practice he spent 28 years in the investment management industry. He held a variety of investment and business management roles in London, New York, Singapore and Melbourne and was most recently the co-head of RBS Asset Management. He graduated in Modern Languages and Law from Cambridge University and is a CFA charter holder. He is also trustee of The Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine and the Common Investment Funds of the Charities Aid Foundation.
Prashant Jain – Trustee of Kusuma Trust (UK)
Prashant Jain is the director of a private company, providing accounting, secretarial and investment-monitoring services to family owned investment firms in Gibraltar. He is a qualified as a Chartered Account, Company Secretary and Cost Accountant from India and has over 20 years experience in corporate finance and taxation. Prashant started his professional career in Calcutta, India. He then went on to gain international experience in Romania and the UK before he moved to Gibraltar in 2006.
Joey Garcia – Trustee of Kusuma Trust (Gibraltar)
Joey is part of the commercial team at the Gibraltar law firm Isolas, who are the legal advisors to the Kusuma Trust. He has been involved in the set up of the Trust structure and advises the Trustees on all matters related to the Trusts accounts, investments and distributions as well as reviewing all agreements in relation to the Trust and its activities.
David is an independent consultant working with charities, companies and the government on the funding and governance of charities and social enterprises and on the promotion of personal philanthropy. His clients have included the UK Treasury, several Private Bank Philanthropy Advisory Services, the first Venture Philanthropy ‘pooled’ fund in the UK, the European Foundation Centre and many endowed and corporate foundations. He has a governance training joint venture (‘On Board’) with the UK’s leading charity law firm. David also works as a ‘mentor/adviser’ for senior staff of several charities. He has been Chief Executive of three foundations including The Baring Foundation (1992-8).
He is a member of the Supervisory Board of Triodos Bank NV. He is a founder Director of the Trust that publishes the journal Alliance. He has been a Trustee of several other charities including, until recently, the National Foundation for Youth Music, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and engage (the association of people working in gallery education). He is a member of the Social Investment Task Force and the Commission on Unclaimed Assets and chairs the editorial group of the Philanthropy UK e-newsletter.
Bina Rani is the Founder Director of Connect for Change (CfC), an organisation working with Asian Diaspora in the UK. She was also the Founder Director of the Asian Foundation for Philanthropy (AFP) and set up the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) in India. Having worked in the voluntary sector for many years in 3 continents, she has accumulated a wealth of experience and knowledge that Kusuma is proud to tap into.
General Sandhu retired from the Indian army after 34 years of service and is now devoting his time to various charitable initiatives. Previously the CEO of “Help Age India”, he now chairs the “South Asian Fundraising Group”, acting as speaker and trainer at a number of international fundraising conferences. He is also a senior consultant at “Brakeley Management & Fundraising Consultants” as well as the Vice Patron of the Gates Memorial Trust in London, of which HRH Prince Charles was patron.
A graduate of Essex University in Sociology of Literature, Dominique has been Editor of the Gibraltar Chronicle since 1996 in the vanguard of public life on the Rock having joined the newspaper in 1984. He was a John Mackintosh Trust scholar and has been stringer for The Times of London and Reuters for many years as well as contributing to British and Spanish newspaper reports and opinion columns. In 2004 he was made an MBE(Member of British Empire) for services to journalism in Gibraltar. While in office he has supported many charities by furthering their cause and activities through the Chronicle.
A Harvard and Princeton graduate, Jean-Paul is currently a tenured lecturer at the Development Studies Institute at the London School of Economics [LSE], where he is also the Programme Director for the MSc in Development Management. He also chairs the Decentralisation Task Force at the “Initiative for Policy Dialogue” [IPD]. Having previously worked for the World Bank as an Economist and Social Sectors Expert in Bolivia, he still acts as an external adviser to the World Bank, UNDP, and other development organizations.