Anju Bhargava
She served as a member on President Obama's Inaugural Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and is the founder of Hindu American Seva Charities.
She served as a member on President Obama's Inaugural Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and is the founder of Hindu American Seva Charities.
Over the last three decades
as a change catalyst pioneer and social entrepreneur she has worked to “make a
difference” on many fronts.
Anju has worked
extensively promoting multiculturalism and diversity in many arenas, including
The Conference Board, AAHOA (Asian American Hotel Owners Association), City of
New York, State of New Jersey. She is a pioneer in bridging and creating
greater cross cultural understanding and dialogues within the Asian American,
South Asian and mainstream communities.
In the community
arena, Anju served as a Community Builder Fellow, for President Clinton’s White
House initiative (1998-2000) where she
fostered partnerships, facilitated economic, workforce and business development
leading to employment of over 100 people. She was recognized by the Partnership for New Jersey and Governor
Whitman. In 2006, she initiated Utsava, the 1st
Festival of India in Winston Salem, NC, an
event linked with Winston Salem's strategic direction to revitalize downtown
and enhance bio-science workforce development, and with North Carolina's global
education vision and goals for school children.
She has advised Livingston Township and the Board of
Education in developing diversity and inclusion strategies
to integrate multicultural residents while enhancing the Township’s image and
resulting property values. She has organized community based affinity
groups and created a language and cultural education infrastructure to
facilitate adaptation and integration. First and only
Indian-American elected to Livingston Township’s
Democratic Council Committee (1996 – 2000).
Anju
initiated/developed the 1st Indian-American women’s organization in North
America, Asian Indian Women
in America (AIWA) which, with the City of New York,
organized the 1st
job fair for new underserved communities in
1986; formed the 1st networking forum in New York for South Asians in Corporate
America in 1988; with Asia Society, formed the 1st leadership
symposium "Connecting with America" for South Asian American Women in
1999. She was a founding member of NJ Corporate Diversity Network, an
initiative formed with Partnership for New Jersey to "maximize
effectiveness of diversity initiatives to enhance business results and
positively affect our communities and the economy".
She co-started Asian
Indians in Livingston and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. initiative. As a Steering
Committee and co-founding member she worked to have a holiday to honor
Martin Luther King and to make it be a day of community service as a “Day
on, not a Day off” in January 1, 2001. Later, the Committee was formally expanded to
become an inclusive Township Diversity Advisory Committee to celebrate
inclusion of all.
Anju is a Vedanta teacher who is bridging philosophy and rituals. She has served in the Livingston’s
Interfaith Clergy Association since the mid 1990s. She volunteers at St.
Barnabas Pastoral Care Department to meet patients needs.
She
assisted in expanding CHOW – Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse.
(Livingston’s interfaith community supports CHOW, such that any person of any
faith has to go to only one faith based service center which is in a local
church. He/She and has access to the resources of all faith based communities
and organizations in town).
Anju
recently co-founded Hindu American Seva Communities. HASC)is progressive
organization whose mission is to advance seva (community service) and promote
pluralism, tolerance, social justice, civic engagement, and interfaith dialogues
to build healthy communities. To that end, HASC seeks to mobilize community
resources in the United States to connect with America and bridge the gap
between the U.S. agencies and Hindu people and institutions. Seva is an
integral part of Hindu and Dharmic traditions and sadhana and is transforming.
HASC is a non-religious, NGO formed in 2009 under the guidance of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and is a
service partner with the Corporation for National and Community Service She is working to bring awareness of Community
Building in a Dharmic Environment.
Anju Bhargava is a Strategic Business Transformation and Risk
Management consultant dedicated to creating multi-dimensional strategies to
address critical issues and maximize return on risk and value in an
interdependent global environment. She works at the intersection of strategy,
risk, leadership (people), process, technology and culture through a
combination of both business and human levers. She began her career nearly
three decades ago as a banker and has held senior level positions in Corporate
America, focusing on global business transformation, organizational development
and risk management (credit and operational risk). Her internationally cited
research a super-regional bank’s Loan loss experience was published by The RMA Journal, and received recognition
from the Office of the Comptroller of Currency. She worked with Rutgers Business
School, as a Fellow of Department of Accounting, Business Ethics and
Information Systems to frame thoughts on current risk assurance and Enterprise
Risk Management issues. Ms Bhargava has consulted for global companies in
diverse industries, coached and mentored talent and provided thought leadership
in the public and private sectors. She has held senior positions at Bank of
America, Bear Stearns, BB&T Bank, IBM Global Services, Fleet/NatWest Bank
and Chase Manhattan Bank. She has developed an Executive Education program,
Chakravyuhu or the labyrinth, a program for mentoring women (India and U.S.) to
make the "step-change" in their careers in the global Corporate
World. She has taught Organization Management at Rutgers Graduate School of Business.
Anju is a graduate of
Stella Maris College, Madras University India and Rutgers University (MBA),
with training at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, American University,
Kellogg, Graduate School of Management and Dale Carnegie Institute. She has
provided thought leadership in the public and private sectors. She has
conducted workshops, presented and published papers at many venues, including
The Conference Board. She is a contributor to Global Diversity: Winning
Customers and Engaging Employees Within by E. Gundling, A. Zanchettini. She is
a recipient of numerous awards.
