Dinesh Shrestha

Dinesh Shrestha is a Nepali development administrator and one of the three co-founders of Room to Read, the children's literacy and girls' education organisation whose Indian programme is among its largest. Before the charity existed he had spent years in the aid sector, serving as chief of operations for the Canadian International Development Agency and for the German technical cooperation agency's rural development programme in Nepal, and working with the World Health Organization. He holds an MBA in human resource management from Kathmandu University.

He met John Wood in 1998, when Wood, then a Microsoft executive, had visited Nepali schools and been struck by their lack of books. The two began by shipping books to Nepal under the name Books for Nepal; with Erin Keown Ganju they formalised the effort as Room to Read in 1999. Shrestha's part was the field work: he and Wood worked with rural communities to build classrooms and set up libraries, on the principle that villages contribute labour and land rather than receive a finished building. In 2002 he became the organisation's first full-time country director in Nepal, a post he held for eight years while Room to Read grew into a significant presence in Nepali education, and he later served as acting country director in Laos, Sri Lanka, India and Nepal, then as regional human resources and administration director for Asia and as global director of field operations, with responsibility for procurement, compliance and field office administration across the organisation.

He has been recognised in Nepal with the Silver Jubilee award marking King Birendra's accession, and in 2013 received Cambodia's highest national honour from the king for Room to Read's work there. He is a founding member of the Nepal Lions Foundation and a life member of the Nepal Red Cross.[2][3][4]