Saswati Bora

Saswati Bora

Saswati Bora is the Head of Food Systems Innovation at the World Economic Forum (WEF) where she heads WEF's two global initiatives on technology innovations and incentives to address food systems challenges as well as the food and agriculture regional work in India. Saswati has almost two decades of experience in developing and leading ambitious agendas on food systems, innovation, sustainable agriculture, and rural development, with a strong track record in catalyzing and driving several prominent global and regional initiatives. Before WEF, Saswati worked in the agriculture and rural development department of the World Bank where she helped set up two key global initiatives - the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) and the Global Food Crisis Program (GFRP). Saswati has also worked previously as a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC, UNDP offices in Nepal and New York, and as a journalist with a daily newspaper in Mumbai.

She is the recipient of the Global Leadership Fellowship of the World Economic Forum, a distinctive leadership development program that combines a position at the Forum with academic training, coaching and on-the-job learning. She is also the youngest winner of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties award in India for best human rights journalism in 2000 for a series of six stories on prison systems in India. Saswati has a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University, a Bachelors degree in Economics from Delhi University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Communications from Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai.