Khan Academy India appoints former Gates Foundation executive as country director

Swati Vasudevan

Khan Academy India, a non-profit online learning platform, appointed Swati Vasudevan, former chief operations officer of Gates Foundation India as its country director on December 1.

In a statement, the company said Vasudevan will oversee India operations and be responsible for driving further growth for Khan Academy in India.

Starting India operations in 2017, Khan Academy is an online learning platform offering free education that focuses on making learning content accessible in regional languages in India for students to learn in their preferred language. The institute caters to over 10,00,000 monthly users in 2022.

Khan Academy said it has partnered with the state governments of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Maharashtra, among others to make quality education accessible in public schools. The organisation said it is focusing on the 'next level of growth,' and Vasudevan will be instrumental in helping drive it.

“We are delighted to have Swati spearheading our India operations for Khan Academy. India is a unique market with several vernacular languages and curriculums for learning. Swati has rich leadership experience, and her expertise will help us lead our mission of making world-class learning content available to every learner in India,” said Sal Khan, founder, and educator of Khan Academy.

Khan Academy said Vasudevan has over two decades of experience in strategy and organisational transformation in both not-for-profit and for-profit sectors. She has served as the COO (chief operations officer) at Gates Foundation India and co-established and managed the Indian School of Public Policy, a graduate-level educational institution, as their founding CEO.

According to the statement, Vasudevan has also advised and mentored startups in the edtech and healthtech verticals.

“...We will continue to look for ways to expand our reach to enable educators and serve students across the country in their native language. Access to quality education is the ticket to economic progress for a generation. I look forward to being a part of this journey of inspiring and educating students across age groups in India,” said Swati Vasudevan, Country Director, India, Khan Academy.

Vasudevan, an engineer from IIT Delhi, also has an MBA from Chicago Booth. She started her career as a field engineer, working on oil rigs with Schlumberger. She has worked for McKinsey, Schneider Electric, and Sleep Number.