Vikram Akula

Background

About Vikram Akula

Vikram Akula was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2006. He is the CEO of Tutorly, an innovative online tutoring company that provides premium tutoring and college/career counseling for students in Title 1 schools; Tutorly is looking to expand school partnerships. He also founded the Bodhi School in India, which provides education for under-served children. He has been a pioneer in creating market-based solutions for financial inclusion. He started as a grassroots social worker in India in 1990. In 1997, Vikram founded Bharat Financial Inclusion in India (formerly SKS Microfinance), which has disbursed more than $18 billion in micro-loans to over 10 million low-income women borrowers. Vikram’s awards include the “Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year” in India (2006) and the EY “Entrepreneur of the Year” in India (start-up in 2006, business transformation in 2009). He is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and an Echoing Green Fellow. Vikram also founded Vaya Financial Services, which uses tablet-banking to deliver loans to low-income people in India. He is an angel investor in the start-up ArthImpact, which uses an app to provide credit to small entrepreneurs in India, and he is an angel investor in AgSri, which helps small farmers in Africa and India reduce water use. He has worked with McKinsey & Company and the Worldwatch Institute and is the author of "Micro-Meltdown: The Inside Story of the Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of the World’s Most Valuable Microlender"(2018) and "A Fistful of Rice: My Unexpected Quest to End Poverty Through Profitability"(2010), published by Harvard Business Review Press. Vikram has a B.A. from Tufts University, an M.A. from Yale University, a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, was a Fulbright Scholar, and was a Distinguished Career Fellow at Stanford University in 2021-22. His website is at http://akula.info