Chetna Sinha, Founder-Chairperson Mann Deshi Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation
Chetna Gala Sinha has been awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar, India’s highest civilian award for women who work in the area of women’s empowerment. She has served as a Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum in Davos (2018), Switzerland and as a Co-Chair of Financial Inclusion at the W20 Summit (2018) in Argentina.

In 1996, Chetna Gala Sinha founded the Mann Deshi Foundation in Mhaswad, a drought-stricken area of Maharashtra, with the aim of economically and socially empowering rural women. In 1997, she set up the Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank - India’s first bank for and by rural women.

Today, the Mann Deshi Bank has 100,000 account holders, has loaned over $50 million and regularly creates new financial products to support the needs of female micro-entrepreneurs.

Mann Deshi runs Business Schools, a Community Radio and a Chambers of Commerce for rural women micro entrepreneurs. To date, it has supported nearly half a million women.