Profile Community Members
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Profile Community Members 1. Roopesh Rai: Roopesh is our founder and mentor. His ideas always have a fine blend of social equity and business both and that’s what makes his endeavors sustainable. He has this uncanny ability to understand future trends and come up with ideas which are in sync with time. He is also one of the founders of an impact organization – The Green People. This organization has successfully been able to bring meaningful and positive changes in the lives of some villages in Garwahl as well as Kumaon regions of the State of Uttarakhand. He was one of the pre-opening team members of Taj Safari – a safari product offered by Taj group of hotels in Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh. He has worked with Intercontinental Hotels, Taj Group Hotels and Thomas Cook in senior sales and marketing positions. Roopesh believes that there’s always an ‘idea’ in ‘idealism’ and he wears his idealism on his sleeves without fear or apology. Deeply affected by the scenes of death and destruction after the cloudburst at Kedarnath, he walked away from his‘working life’ — at Taj Hotels and Thomas Cook (India) — “to do something pro-climate, pro-people, and for profit”. But although his initial experiments of creating a brand of local goats' cheese ran aground in Uttarakhand — now infamous for outmigration, with over 1,800 ‘ghost villages’ — he didn’t stop looking for a “social engineering solution that also made good business sense”. Somewhere along the way, he started a company that now runs community-friendly farm retreats and homestays in eight Goat Villages, helped revive the traditional, climate-proof koti banal architecture, and began selling farm products under the ‘Bakri Chaap’ label. But what caught the imagination of young urban travellers in particular, was our Pay As You Like model, and the curious invitation to a Bakri Swayamvar (or a call for suitors for nanny goats). But that’s a story for another day! Roopesh is a resident of Noida and keeps travelling to Uattarakhand quite often. 2. Mani Mahesh Aurora: Mani started his career as a radio jockey having been a voice of 92.7 BIG FM and All India Radio. His journey with The Green People started as a trekker, followed by boarding as a volunteer and eventually transforming into a co-founder. Mani has been quite innovative in his marketing ideas and has been a focused professional. You will never miss his sense of affection and concern towards his people. Mani is a disciplined practitioner of meditation and has got a spiritual bent of mind. No wonder he is currently based in Rishikesh – the yoga capital of the world.Though he has a quite and calm demeanor his passion speaks louder. Mani has also worked with the Time of India in Delhi. 3. Rachna Dushyant Singh: Rachna has done her M.Phil in linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.She has travelled to Hongkng for her teaching assignments at Baptist College which is affiliated to University of Hongkong. She writes on cultural and women’s issues on travel magazines. She has delivered lectures on communication skills at Ministry Tourism, Government of India. While studying in JNU she worked with children in slums and this experience made her realize importance of education. In 2000 she started a rural women’s organization ‘The Agency for Non- Konventional Urban Rural Initiatives – ANKURI’ – www.ankuri.org. ANKURI was started as an informal village women’s group, within a year ANKURI became a catalyst to seven self-help groups felicitating micro credits and lending for community members. Through ANKURI rural women are trained in different skills like knitting ,weaving, spinning, embroidery, quilting, tie and dye, batik, paper making, hand block printing etc. Some of the key objectives of ANKURI are skill development, employment generation, creating artisans, rural education, promotion of organic farming, animal husbandry etc. Rachna also runs a homestay in Dehradun and has keen interest in the English language. 4. Sanjeev Kamdar: Sanjeev Kamdar is a renowned Chartered Accountant from Mumbai and is a senior partner in Kamdar, Patil and Desai – a notable chartered accountancy firm in the financial capital of India. Though he practices chartered accountancy for living his heart and soul always lives in hills. He owns a small little quaint homestay by the name of Seegreen Birding Lodge at a place called Hathipano near Mussoorie in Uttarakhand. He often escapes to this place to fix his nature deficit disorder. His love for nature and cleanliness makes him participate in various cleanliness and anti-plastic drives in the hills. He is the missing link of the Mad House to Mud House gang – he is our financial engineer. His vast knowledge of company affairs and corporate governance gives us a peace of mind with matters regards to company law and compliance. 5. Ishaan Sharma: Ishan likes to call himself ‘an accidental Mechanical Engineer’. He runs a group of enthusiastic bikers in Noida known as Royal Enfield Club Noida. During last 5 years he and his gang have explored various terrains of Northern India on their Royal Enfield bikes. Ishan is a keen learner of sustainability and is quite to eager to contribute. Through the virtue of his family owned business he has been an entrepreneur too. Ishan is one of our young turks. 6. Abhinav Singh: Abhinav is an Environmental Engineer from mind and Environmental Conservationist from heart. He secured his Masters from BIT Mesra in 2011 and started working in the fields of Renewable Energy in the upper Himalyan region. After getting a call from IIT Delhi he worked there as a Project Associate and soon was elavated as as an Assistant Professor job in an University in Delhi NCR. Soon he realized that publishing papers is not helping him in healing the mother earth so quit the job to pursue his passion where he can " Create an ecosystem where nothing goes waste".He believes that permaculture is the quintessence not only for the rejuvenation of environment but also for the bonding of one's soul with mother nature. Abhinav brings a different energy to this group. He is the second notable youg turk of the group and one of the founders actually. Abhinav is based out of Lucknow. 7. Meenam Malhotra: Based out of New Delhi. Army family background. A Science Post Graduate. Profession wise, served in managerial positions in a leading nationalized bank (BOI) for over two decades.Post early retirement, worked in the area of Public Relations and as Volunteer with various NGO's and other organizations.Presently dedicated full time to taking forward the cause of MHMH. Her Skills highlights are Management, Liasoning, Public Relations, Communications and Social Networking. She believes she is a People's Person, having their welfare at heart, always. Meenam is an ardent traveler, nature lover, photographer and takes pride in the diverse cultures and heritage of Rural India, therefore so much in tune with the Mission and Vision of MHMH. She believes that travel enriches and empowers people and interacting with different kinds of people enriches and empowers life. 8. Ravi Singh: Ravi is a passionately creative hospitality professional & ecopreneur with keen business acumen. He holds 20 years of rich experience across sales, operation, hotel pre-opening and management functions. He is an innovative, hands on practitioner & always leads from the front to deliver across management needs. Adept at strategic planning with team management expertise he is a real peoples pilot. His motivation, training skills and HR management skills converge to add sales and marketing edge. He is a hyper networker and has worked across hotels like Inter Continental Hotel Group, Royal Orchid Hotels, Sarovar Hotels and Resorts, Marriott & Taj Hotels.He has got a certification in Hospitality Business Acumen. Ravi is also a passionate educationist, social worker & yoga enthusiast. 9. Gaurav Tiwari: Gaurav is an IIT BHU (B. Tech) & Warwick Business School (MBA) alumni, residing and working in the UK. He is a keen & purposeful traveler, having experienced culture & humanity of 20 countries across 4 continents. He patronizes financially-inclusive & sustainable business models that bring joy to all stakeholders & provide the best value to shareholders. 10. Kunal Mehra: Kunal has been a passionate traveler and loves to explore. He claims to have seen life from both ends of the spectrum. He has been a thrill seeker and "where to next' is his funda in life. So, it goes without saying that he is always busy planning the next trip. He has been grateful to life for all it has given him till today. Focusing on positives rather than negatives is his attitude. He believes every failure has an opportunity in it. He has been an ardent follower of Sadguru and practices Yoga religiously. Professionally Kunal belongs to Hotel and Travel Industry. As a millennial he has always been motivated to take up new challenges. He has managed the operations of a resort in the village of Nathua Khan (Uttarakhand) which is at the foothills of Panchachuli Peaks. This organization’s aim was to generate employment, creating learning experiences and opportunities and driving the culture of hospitality amongst the locals. He has also worked with different organizations like Kuoni, Sita travels (Logistics Manager Sita) LPTI, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Imperial Hotel and Radisson Malhipalpur. In 2017 he formed his own venture called 3B Travels. Kunal has also been helping NASA in their expedition called Spaceword Bound in Ladhakh. Trust based relationships and customer delight are his focus and he wants to share the joy of travelling with the rest of the world. 11. Amrita Mangat: Amrita comes from the land five rivers – Punjab.