Nandan Nilekani:
Cofounder, eGovernments Foundation & CEO, Infosys Technologies Ltd

As someone who has spent 25 years in the private sector, and about 5 trying to put my experience to use in the area of public governance, I have been struck by the need to radically improve the leadership, managerial and execution capability in the public space. Be it government institutions or NGOs, they are long on intent, but simply do not have the wherewithal to execute on their promise.

Thus ILID fills a very important space in this situation, as it plans to address the biggest challenge in the public space - the creation of leaders and institutions that will have the robustness, depth and integrity of vision and purpose, and exceptional excellence to transform their aspirations into reality. I have been a strong supporter of Dr. Jayaram and ILID ever since he first broached this idea to me, and will continue to be his supporter, advocate and well-wisher!

Swati and Ramesh Ramanathan:
Cofounders, Janaagraha

Non-profits often begin with an excess of passion and idealism, and a shortage of professionalism and structure. The successful ones grow because they are driven by the first two traits, and possibly have some modicum of the latter two. However, even in the best scenarios, it is like a car running on half a tank of gas: sooner or later it is bound to stop, maybe even when it is just about to get on the highway of change.

It's not that the founders of these organizations don't know that institutional development and leadership promotion are important; just that a non-profit operates to a different rhythm, and so the rules of the game are often completely different. The simplest processes in a regular company are substantially more difficult to integrate into a non-profit. A run-of-the-mill consulting firm cannot bring the skill-set and diversity of experience that such challenges require. In this situation, ILID has arrived as a ray of hope. Combining world-class expertise, and wide-ranging experience, Dr Jayaram is bringing a spirit into ILID that makes this not just another advisory firm, but one that can actually empathize with the specific situation of a non-profit.

Our own experience has been one of beginning to treat Dr Jayaram almost like a father-figure: he has this uncanny ability to "see" the issues, which otherwise needs exhaustive elaboration. This, combined with his transparent integrity and enormous bag of experiences, has meant that we feel a sense of immense reassurance that we are in safe hands.

ILID needs to grow because we need to quickly pass on the message that you can combine professionalism and passion in the non-profit sector, that the worst thing that can happen is when people invest their hearts into a social cause, but get trapped by their execution. ILID needs to grow, because there are so many like us who need it.

We wish ILID all success, and are sure that everyone who works with ILID believes that it is a part of their family! It certainly is a part of ours.

Managing Trustee:
eGovernments Foundation

From our experience in the eGovernments Foundation we find that in many of the city municipalities across India, systems have broken down, processes are arcane (optimized to 200 year old technologies) our administration staff many times not-qualified to administer (5th grader as city commissioner). When such is the state of affairs where do you start fixing the problems? While we focus of technology to help in solving some of the above problems, ILID offers some significant complimentary solutions -Training, Leadership development, Organizational improvement. These are corporate buzz we are all familiar with, but they are equally important in the public sector. ILID, with Dr. Jayaram’s leadership, brings world class skills in leadership and institutional development to bring lasting change in the Indian setting, offering their assistance to a much needed sector - NGOs and Governments.

We at eGovernments Foundation are beneficiaries of ILID’s work. They not only look at the issues relating to our target customers - City Municipalities, but also look at our own organization to help create a strong institution for lasting change. Dr. Jayaram brings a wealth of experiences from Fortune 100 - Proctor & Gamble to the creation of a world class Institute of Leadership at Infosys, His enormous experience in this field and his ability to engage his clients in an in-depth meaningful ways has been of great value to the eGovernments Foundation.

Rohini Nilekani:
Chairperson, Akshara Foundation

Akshara Foundation, an initiative to universalize quality elementary education in Karnataka and especially Bangalore has been looking at an organizational restructuring for the past few months, in order to become more effective in our mission. We were fortunate enough to receive the guidance of

Dr Jayaram and his extraordinary colleagues at ILID. I had heard much about Dr Jayaram’s unique talent in nurturing leadership skills and coaxing organizations to understand how they need to change and how to deal with that change. But now we have been privileged to personally experience the ILID magic. Not only is enormous amount of time offered pro bono to Akshara, the complete sharing and caring demonstrated by every ILID member has been extraordinary.

Through ILID, Akshara has almost completed a time bound plan to achieve our newly set goals. The organization too is gearing up for change. ILID has promised to handhold this process for two annual cycles. Now we feel confident that we will have put into place a much more efficient public private partnership to ensure that? Every child is in school and learning well.

ILID fulfills a critical need in India, where our institutional development has been weak. Especially for the non-profit sector, ILID can bring in corporate efficiencies to bear upon honesty of purpose. If social transformation is the goal, there is no time to lose. ILID’s inputs will help crunch the cycle time of change management.

We wish ILID the greatest success and thank each associate for the work with Akshara.

Pramod Kulkarni:
Founder, "Prerana" and "Sathi"

Once upon a time simplicity, sacrifice, and willingness to live with the disadvantaged was considered a near sufficient for good work. Such activity would then leave a positive impact on the society. Today one has to be and can be much more effective in bringing results to the people and the new knowledge to the sector to leave an impression on the society at large. There is lot of accumulated understanding of developmental issues and the probable solutions. (There) are standards set in many developmental issues, be it child health or agriculture.

The work of a person has to be at the cutting edge of what is already accomplished in that sector to contribute to development in a significant way.
…for good development work to excel, grow and perform better, there is a need to push it on many fronts.

There is need for consonance among objectives, the working culture, working systems, HRD; there is funding, goal revisiting, networking with relevant institutions, not to say of the IT support, support from media. The development entrepreneur normally is good in handling some core areas. It is not practical to expect the entrepreneur to be handling all the above fronts. (Further) the funding in development (sector) does not support highly professional and integrated inputs. If an entrepreneur, who is serious, has high vision and is good, and such person gets support in the secondary management areas, the development performance of such efforts will increase a lot. ILID is providing this support.

The corporate governance culture, efficiencies, focus have to be brought to the development sector and it will do good. ILID is well equipped to do this.

There is lot of synergy that happens if two good people come together. In development one sees situation where two people say: “I am doing good and you are doing good and we will continue to be good but separate”; getting the two to work together needs great abilities. It can be tried by a person who is respected by all. The person has to get the group together and for that every member has to feel respected. The intermediary has to weave the concern of all and lead to the vision which accommodates all. It is possible as all the people concerned are good and wish good, but se the issue from different heights, sides. The differences reduce if there is vision which can be seen from all. That can be done by intermediary with substantial experience, having respect to all and a large vision and patience. Also the ILID has this kind of team. We can put many good people already working for development, to come together to accomplish more and better than individual.

After two decades of work on the field, it is appropriate to move back in the line and support the one in the front with all one’s mite and with the little experience obtained while in the front. With ILID I felt I am getting a new window opening for me to work to contribute to others who are serious, and contribute in a very productive way; chipping in what I can accomplish best. I could have not done it left to myself.