The phrase “Corporate Social Responsibility” has become part of the corporate vocabulary. Studies from the Pew Research Center indicate Generation Z’s interest in working for and buying from companies that exhibit strong social responsibility—the desire to give back fuels this new generation. However, the Naveen Jindal School of Management has cultivated strong, socially responsible business leaders since 1975, including Sejal Desai, MBA’99. Desai was honored April 13 at the 2024 UT Dallas Awards Gala with the Green and Orange Award as an outstanding alumna.

Desai has always had a powerful sense of social and community responsibility. Born and raised in India, Desai observed firsthand the profound poverty entrenched in communities.

“I spent 20 years of my life in Mumbai; I encountered numerous communities grappling with extreme poverty, where children lived in slums or on the streets,” she said. “My family was both modest and middle-class, yet they instilled in me an ethos of making a difference for others. I witnessed the transformative power of quality education—the great equalizer.”

Desai decided to pursue her Master of Business Administration at the Jindal School. She relocated from Mumbai, India, to Dallas and discovered a sense of belonging within JSOM, where she forged profound community connections.

The Jindal School provided Desai with comprehensive business education and the tools and networks necessary to enact change. There, she found avenues to channel her interest in entrepreneurship and passion for social change into tangible initiatives.

“The Jindal School provided me with a solid business foundation for exploring diverse career paths,” she said. “More significantly, as an immigrant from India, my connections to the community were facilitated through faculty, staff and fellow students, offering the exposure I needed to effect change.”

Desai began her 30-year career in venture capital, spanning sectors of mergers and acquisitions, accounting and entrepreneurship, but she then transfered to the nonprofit domain.

“In what many would call a midlife crisis—I call it my midlife clarity—I began to move out from the corporate world into the nonprofit sector,” she said. “I started SevaYatra, which means ‘a journey of service.’ I wanted to connect individuals, universities and organizations to the nonprofit community.”

SevaYatra focused on engaging US-based universities and multinational corporations with India-based nongovernmental organizations. Desai later worked for 10 years at the Communities Foundation of Texas, where she advocated for education, hunger relief and women’s issues. Her work bridging the gap between the corporate and nonprofit sectors propelled her into her current position. With a fervent desire to transform lives through education, she joined the Akanksha Education Fund as executive director.

Akanksha was founded in India more than 30 years ago, and Sejal now heads its US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Akanksha champions initiatives to improve access to quality education for underprivileged children in India. The fund runs 26 public-private partnership schools in India for children from low-income communities; through this transformative education, it seeks to pull people out of generational poverty.

“I deeply believe that companies have a moral responsibility to be actively engaged in their community,” she said. Sejal continues her work while bringing others along with her, especially women. In 2015, she co-founded the Orchid Giving Circle to shine a light on and support issues affecting the North Texas women in this community. She said, “We are a community of South, East and Southeast Asian women with a mission to effect beneficial change through the power of collective giving.” In nine years, they have given more than $1,000,000 to more than 30 nonprofits in the North Texas region.

“When you see a need, choose to roll up your sleeves and make a difference, which brings people together,” she said. “If you have an idea, if you care about something, you can make a difference simply by putting that idea into action.”