Neela A. Saldanha is the Executive Director at the Yale Research Initiative on Innovation and Scale (Y-RISE) and a behavioral scientist. Previously she was the Founding Director for the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change, Ashoka University India, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to her career in development, Neela spent 15+ years in the private sector leading teams in brands, sales, consumer insights, and strategy at Nestle, Unilever, PepsiCo, and Accenture. Neela has been mentioned in Forbes magazines as "Ten Behavioral Scientists You Should Know." Her writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Nature Human Behavior, and Behavioral Scientist, among others. She is a Board Member of The Life You Can Save, founded by leading philosopher Peter Singer, and Grameen Foundation USA. She has a PhD in Marketing from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from IIM Calcutta, India. Neela lives in New York City with her husband Tanuj, daughter Aliya, and gently stubborn cat Ginger.