Radha Goenka

Goenka holds a degree in business communication from the University of Pennsylvania.

Goenka entered the social sector in 2008, beginning Pehlay Akshar in a single school in Worli, Mumbai, to provide English teaching to pupils in government schools. The programme initially ran as a volunteering scheme for RPG Group employees. In 2010 it added a schooling programme in partnership with government schools, built around an in-house curriculum, and in 2011–12 expanded to five schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in Worli and to seven other locations outside Mumbai. In 2013 government authorities invited the organisation to align its work with the state curriculum, and its functional English framework was integrated into the schooling programme.

Pehlay Akshar has since worked with several hundred municipal schools in Mumbai and reports having trained thousands of teachers. Goenka has said the organisation is grounded in her conviction that education makes a difference when it is delivered in the right way and in the right environment, with a basis in functional English.

As director of the RPG Foundation she oversees programmes grouped under the pillars of education, employment and heritage, with work directed at children, young people and women through education and vocational training.[2][3][4][5]