Ramya Venkata Raman

Ramya Venkataraman is the Founder and CEO of the Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA) Pvt. Ltd., now the world’s largest professional platform for teachers. CENTA serves over two million teachers from more than 100,000 schools across India, as well as educators from several Asian and African countries such as the UAE, Nigeria, Ghana, and the Philippines. Teachers from over 100 countries are represented on the CENTA platform.

CENTA is making teaching aspirational by certifying teacher competencies, supporting professional upskilling, and partnering with schools and governments to create clear career pathways for teachers. The CENTA Standards for teachers have directly contributed to India’s National Professional Standards for Teachers and have also been presented to UNESCO’s International Task Force on Teachers.

Prior to founding CENTA, Ramya spent 15 years with global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where she was part of the India office leadership and also worked across North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. After initially focusing on heavy industries, she shifted in the last five years of her McKinsey career to build McKinsey’s education practice, pursuing her long-standing passion for education.

Ramya has been widely recognized for her contributions to education — named among 15 Women Transforming India by NITI Aayog and the UN, selected as an Ashoka Fellow (global social entrepreneurship network), profiled in the Peabody Journal of Education (USA), and invited as guest faculty for a Harvard course on social entrepreneurship, among other honors.

She is also a recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from both her alma maters, the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (1997) and the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (1999).