About

Vidya Shah is the Executive Chairperson at EdelGive Foundation, the philanthropic initiative of Edelweiss Group – a leading Indian diversified financial services group.

Vidya left behind her successful career in investment banking to start EdelGive Foundation, and over the last 13 years has steered the growth of Edelweiss’ social investments to develop EdelGive into a strategic philanthropic organisation.

Having witnessed the potential of small to mid-sized, grassroots NGOs to better address India’s development concerns, Vidya has channeled EdelGive’s structure of giving to include both financial and non-financial support to over 150 organisations, scaling their budgets, impact, and reach, exponentially.

She has developed a unique model for EdelGive’s NGO partners which places them at the centre of grant-making, not only providing initial grants to these organisations but also managing funding from other institutional and corporate partners. Through this approach, over the years, EdelGive has emerged as a go-to partner of choice for Indian and foreign funders wanting to engage with the Indian development ecosystem. Consequently today, EdelGive functions as a Philanthropic Fund Manager and Advisor for both grant-makers and credible NGOs.

In addition to being a non-executive director at Edelweiss, Vidya also serves on the boards of various prominent CSOs such as Akshaya Patra Foundation, Agastya International Foundation, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka University, Olympic Gold Quest, Mann Deshi Foundation, and the Indian School of Public Policy. She is also a member of the Governing Board of the Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur. Additionally, Vidya is also on the board of several international organisations including WINGS and Empower Families for Innovative Philanthropy. Most recently she has joined the Asia Gender Network, a group of members curated by AVPN, committed to changing the future for Asian women and girls.

She has been recognised as India’s Top 100 Women in Finance by Association of International Wealth Management of India (AIWMI) 2019.

Vidya earned an MBA degree from IIM-Ahmedabad and spent the first 11 years of her career in the field of investment banking with companies like ICICI, Peregrine and NM Rothschild. She subsequently was Chief Financial Officer of Edelweiss for 7 years until its IPO in 2007.