Avnish Gungadurdoss

Avnish is the Co-Founder and CEO of Instiglio, which partners with government leaders to transform institutions into high-performing, results-driven organizations and to elevate the impact of public policy. As of 2024, Instiglio has empowered 450 government leaders to transform 25 government and aid entities and has influenced more than $800 million in development spending. Instiglio’s ambition is to codify, scale, and institutionalize these new performance standards and practices in public institutions globally through a large network of purpose-driven government champions and partnerships with major development financing institutions.

Avnish leads the organization’s overall strategy as well as the team that develops and advances its scaling pathways through partnerships with aid institutions and networks of government leaders. Before founding Instiglio in 2012, he worked at MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and at the World Bank. Avnish holds a Master’s in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, a diploma in Performance Management for Nonprofit Organizations from Harvard Business School, and a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from Dartmouth College.

Avnish was awarded the Echoing Green Fellowship and named one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” social entrepreneurs for his work with Instiglio. He was also a Visiting Fellow of Practice at Oxford University’s Government Outcomes Lab and has been a keynote speaker alongside Nobel laureates Michael Kremer and Joseph Stiglitz. He is a board member of Labor Mobility Partnerships, an instructor at Philanthropy U, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development.