Our Team
Meet Our Leadership
Kishore Rao started Indian Cancer Society, Karnataka, in 1986 as a voluntary organisation, and today ICS has offices in Kalaburagi and Mangaluru besides Bengaluru. In 1994 he started Karunashraya in partnership with Rotary Bangalore Indiranagar- a shining example of a cancer hospice across the country. Kishore has been in the not-for-profit sector for the last 35 years.
Kanchan has been in the voluntary sector for 25 years. Till recently she was Managing Trustee of Akshara Foundation, an education NGO and was on the Board of Pratham Books, a producer of delightful children’s books. Prior to that she was a Consultant with TERI as well as Centre for Environment Education. Currently she is also a Trustee at Karunashraya.
Sujatha is a successful and reputed practicing Chartered Accountant, based in Bangalore with clients far and wide. She has more than 30 years of experience in industry, management consulting and tax advisory. She is a Fellow Chartered Accountant and MBA from Georgia Tech, USA.
Kala Devarajan is a Chartered Accountant by profession, and has corporate work experience in the Manufacturing and Financial Sectors.
1996 was a landmark year when she joined the Bangalore Hospice Trust, Karunashraya, as a volunteer. Her professional expertise helped her assist with their finance planning, fund raising and administration. She was invited to join the Board of Trustees in the year 2000 and has been contributing as the Treasurer for the past 20 plus years.
Dr. Latha Jagannathan is the Medical
Director and Managing Trustee of the not-for-profit organization, Bangalore
Medical Services Trust, (BMST). She founded BMST in 1984 and has been
responsible for its operations and growth into the only standalone facility in
India with a Blood Centre, HLA Laboratory and Tissue Bank, providing a wide
spectrum of services in the field of blood, organ & cellular therapies.
She is a founder member of the Indian
Cancer Society, Karnataka and Karunashraya. She is on the board of MYRADA, a
developmental organization, and Samraksha, an NGO working in the field of HIV
& AIDS.
She is an invited member of several Government, National & International bodies on Health, Blood Banking, and Transplant Immunology and the Task Force on Health and Family Welfare, Karnataka.
Sridhar is an M.Tech from I.I.T.Mumbai, Sridhar recently co-founded a start-up Ubiqare Health Private Limited which focuses on enabling specialised doctor driven care to patients at home. Sridhar along with friends started Sanman, a volunteer group for Palliative Care in Jan 2014 for providing support to families and patients for curative, palliative and end-of-life care. Sridhar is also a Trustee at Karunashraya.
Praveen has been involved with ICS Bengaluru since 2016, and was instrumental in setting up ICS Kalaburgi Unit with other volunteers. Praveen has a bachelor’s degree B. E in Electronics & Instrumentation from Gulbarga University and has 23 years of experience in IT / Semiconductor domain. He has close ties with north-east Karnataka region and closely guides the ground team.
Dr. Anjali Rao retired recently as Additional Director, Central
Government Health Scheme Bengaluru, after serving for 37 years. Her work has been mainly clinical, in screening, diagnosis, therapeutic, and long-term management of NCD and associated complications. Dr. Rao is an alumna of the Armed Forces Medical College Pune, with a Diploma in Child Health (DCH). Presently, Dr. Rao is a National Standing Committee member of IMA’s ‘Doctors For Doctors’ (D4D), an organisation dedicated to the emotional wellbeing and welfare of doctors and medical students.
Dr. Rakesh Mittal, started his career as a consultant pediatrician in 1983. He then completed his DM in Medical Pediatric Oncology from Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, Bangalore in 1997. Dr. MIttal worked in various national and international cancer hospitals including at Kuwait Cancer Center, where he was the Head of the Pediatric Oncology Dept. His last assignment
was as Deputy Director of the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital, Varanasi. Currently based in Bengaluru, he is involved with various national and international NGOs working in the field of oncology.
AP Kamath joined ICS, Bangalore as a volunteer in Dec 2022. Before joining ICS, he worked in a couple of leading MNCs at senior positions with a work experience of 46 years. He is passionate about community service, especially for the underprivileged classes, not forgetting animals.
Dr. Guru Suhas. P has an undergraduate degree in Dental Sciences from Oxford College of Dental Sciences Bangalore and followed it up with a Masters in Public Health Dentistry from Bangalore Institute of Dental Sciences. He then worked as faculty in Maruthi Dental College. He joined the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) as a Project scientist for little over two years. He has now found his passion in Indian Cancer Society and wants to help spread awareness about cancer.
Amarinder started her career with corporate jobs but soon chose to run a school in a semi-urban area in Bathinda, Punjab. Eleven years in the school brought her face-to-face with the many social, political, health and environmental realities that made life difficult for the people. Picking up on environment and health, she started working with an NGO to promote organic farming. Since then, she has continued in the NGO field as a communications and fund-raising resource person.
Chandrakala completed her Secretarial Course and joined a Proprietorship company as an Executive assistant in the initial stage of her career. Later she moved to the HR department in a corporate company and worked as an Assistant Manager HR (Operations) for about 20 years. Since the last 5 years Chandrakala has been working with Indian Cancer Society as an Manager Administration and Accounts.
Santani started her professional life in 1998 as a high school Hindi teacher at Hasan District. She later moved to Dharwad and worked with Akshara Foundation as a district program coordinator. Post this, she worked with various organisations in different roles such as a district program coordinator in Mahila Samakhya Karnataka, (Dharwad unit); as Program lead in Vidhya Poshak Dharwad; and as Program Coordinator in Prajayatna, Bangalore.
Later on, she started her own Trust named DANDIN TRUST Through which she is currently running education and health programmes for women and children.
Gururaj Kulkarni is a native of Kalaburagi (earlier called Gulbarga) and is a qualified Tax Practitioner. Before setting up his practise, Gururaj worked in Mercedes Benz (ZTC) Finance Division at Muscat (Oman) for 4 years. He joined ICS as a Volunteer in 2016 and is responsible for Planning & Managing of Awareness and Screening Camps in Kalaburagi region. He has developed good coordination with District level Medical officers, other NGOs as well as KIDWAI Hospital, NCDC and DHO for smooth running of camps.
Shaila grew up in Mangalore, where she graduated from St Agnes College in the Commerce stream. She has experience working with JSW Steels, Bellary in their CSR Dept. Shaila joined ICS Mangalore four years ago, as Regional Operations Manager. She spearheads the activities in the region in collaboration with hospitals and partner organisations and has built up a network of contacts at various levels. She has been associated with several Voluntary organisations in and around Mangalore.
Ms. Alpa Dharamshi is a multilingual Counsellor with over 15 years of experience in Counselling patients and caregivers in a range of situations from Cancer patients to Family counselling to Suicide counselling. Alpa has extensive experience, having volunteered with Banjara Helping Hand, Dignity Foundation (for Senior citizens), Parihar Foundation (for the cause of widows) and Madat Trust at Tata Memorial Hospital. She has been in the forefront of the Volunteering team in ICS since 2015. Alpa is the founder of PEHECHAAN – A Mission To Help Identify Yourself.
