Reema Sathe

Reema is a social entrepreneur dedicated to bridging income inequalities and advocating for the rights of vulnerable communities in India. Over nine years, she has been consistently engaged in grassroots work, building community-led income generation models with rural women, smallholding farmers, and indigenous populations.

Reema’s work centers around transforming agriculture and livestock supply chains, empowering rural communities to embrace entrepreneurship through micro-enterprises. In the State of Maharashtra, she pioneered the first-ever rural women-owned food brand. This initiative not only doubled their incomes but also inspired a set of women leaders challenging the status quo regarding women’s social and economic standing in their respective villages.

Along with her efforts on the ground, Reema serves as an advisor to various non-profits and community-led organizations in India. Her role in establishing Rajasthan’s first micro camel milk dairy benefited over 3,000 camel herders, providing a sustainable source of income amidst livelihood threats due to State policies and declining camel populations. Additionally, her expertise has catalyzed the formation of Manipur’s first women-only farmer producer company (FPC), empowering over 16,000 tribal women to embrace small-scale pig farming and create value-added products from forest resources. Her responsibility in this role revolved around policy recommendations and programs aimed at enhancing technology, finance, and livelihood opportunities for women in India and Bangladesh.

She has co-authored a regional chapter on South Asia for FAO’s (The food and agriculture organization of the United Nations) report on Gender and Climate-Smart Agriculture in collaboration with the University of East Anglia (UEA, Norwich). Reema is a Presidential Award Winner in the year 2017 (awarded by the Honorable President of India and the Ministry of Woman & Child Development), recognized for bringing positive economic change for rural women in Maharashtra.

She has been featured as one of the Most powerful women in the Indian impact business in Business Today and the Forbes Magazine. Her organization, Happy Roots, has been featured as one of the successful case studies bridging gender gap in agriculture by the United Nations & The World Bank Group. Reema is also a fellow at the British Asian Trust and UnLtd India. Her passion for building more inclusive, equitable, and transformative institutions and societies, leads her to Oxford, where she seeks to deepen her inquiry through theory and practice. Reema wishes to challenge her critical thinking, both inside and outside the classroom, to solve development problems at scale. Her interest lies at the intersection of economic development, multi-dimensional equality (including gender justice and community rights) and technology. When not working, Reema indulges in the joys of traveling, exercising, and savouring a good glass of wine.