Shaheen Mistri

Shaheen Mistri (born 16 March 1971) is an Indian social activist and educator. She is a founder of the Akanksha Foundation, an Indian educational initiative in Mumbai and Pune, and is also the CEO of Teach For India since 2008.

Shaheen Mistri was born in Mumbai, India in a Parsi family. She had an international upbringing and grew up in various countries, including Lebanon, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and the United States as she moved countries with her father, a senior banker with Citigroup. After attending boarding school in Connecticut, she moved to India for higher education. She graduated with a BA degree in Sociology from St. Xavier's College, University of Mumbai and later obtained a Masters in Education from the University of Manchester. Before launching the Akanksha Foundation, Shaheen's interest in children's education led her to volunteer as a teacher in diverse organizations in Mumbai, such as the Happy Home and School for the Blind and the E.A.R. school for the Hearing Impaired.

Shaheen Mistri, as a young college student, walked into the Mumbai slums and expressed her desire to teach the less privileged children who roamed the streets. To fulfill this goal, she founded the Akanksha Foundation, a non-profit organisation working primarily in education, at the age of 20 to impact the lives of such children. Over a period of 20 years, her Akanksha Foundation, which started with just 15 children in one centre, now teaches 3,500 children in 58 centres and six schools. In the summer of 2008, she took on a leadership role at Teach For India which enlists India's most promising college graduates and young professionals to spend two years teaching in low-income schools and attempt to bridge the educational gap in the country.

Shaheen also sits on the boards of Ummeed, and the Thermax Social Initiatives Foundation and is an advisor to the Latika Roy Foundation.

• Redrawing India: The Teach For India Story (2014)

• Ashoka Fellow (2001)
• Global Leader for Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum (2002)
• Asia Society 21 Leader (2006)