Mr. Aloysius Prakash Fernandez, Founder Chairperson. (M. A., L. Ph. and B. Ph). He worked in the World Bank and the Canadian International Development Agency and was the Executive Director of MYRADA, a premier NGO, for 28 years. He was Director of Corporation Bank, member of the Bangalore University Syndicate and of Dr C. Rangarajan’s Committee on Financial Inclusion. He was the first Chairperson of NABARD Financial Services Ltd., (NABFINS). He is popularly known as the father of the SHG movement, which he pioneered in 1985, and took to scale with NABARD. He was awarded with the Padmashree in 2000 and by Honourable Mr. Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister, Government of India, at a celebration to mark the Silver Jubilee of ‘SHG-Bank linkage Program” in the concept and implementation of which he and MYRADA played a major role.