Smita Satiani is a Project Manager for Ashoka's Changemakers, an open-sourced community of action that connects social entrepreneurs around the globe to share ideas, inspire, and mentor each other to solve the world's most pressing social problems. Changemakers builds on Ashoka's three-decade history and belief that we all have the ability to change the world. Previous to Ashoka, Satiani worked at the William J. Clinton Foundation's Economic Opportunity Initiative in Harlem, New York supporting women and minority entrepreneurs across the U.S. through an Entrepreneur Mentoring Program in partnership with Inc. Magazine. Satiani has also worked as a public policy associate for RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization based out of Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles Commission on the Status of Women, the National Organization for Women, a Member of Congress, and as an organizer for MoveOn.org Political Action during the 2006 mid-term elections.

With an expertise in the intersections of violence against women, public policy, and social entrepreneurship, Satiani also works as a consultant for the Office of Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice. She has been invited to speak on various panels and media venues about economic empowerment, violence against women and women in politics throughout the U.S., at UCLA, the University of Southern California, George Washington University, the University of Michigan, the University of Miami, American University and on Capitol Hill. Satiani has been featured on NPR radio, Alternet, and as a frequent women's rights contributor to The Huffington Post. Satiani completed her B.A. in Criminology and Women's Studies at the University of California, Irvine, received a Master of Public Policy at USC’s School of Policy, Planning, & Development, and has also completed international policy programs at Georgetown's Public Policy Institute and at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. She can be reached at ssatiani@gmail.com.

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