Amitav Virmani is the founder and CEO of The Education Alliance (TEA) - a nonprofit organisation in India working primarily as a facilitator of public private partnerships in education across the country. Prior to this, Amitav was country director of Absolute Return for Kids (ARK), India, a UK based philanthropic co-operative founded in 2002, for which he was responsible for setting up and managing its India operations. Amitav and his team were responsible for launching several programs in India, such as School Leaders for India - a leadership capacity building program, ASPIRE- an English literacy program, ENABLE - a vouchers school access program, and SQA- a school quality assesment initiative in Madhya Pradesh funded by the UK Department for International Development (DIFD). He is actively involved in the capacity of trustee/director with various philanthropic organizations involving education, spirituality, and children. He sits on the board of Central Square Foundation, AVPN India, Childrens Book Trust, CAPED, Kama Holdings, and several other companies. In 2010, he was selected as an Aspen Fellow and joined the 3rd batch of the India Leadership Initiative. Amitav was also selected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2015 and an N/Core Fellow for their inaugural class in 2017. Amitav was educated at the Doon School, Dehra Dun and went on to study economics at the St. Stephens College, Delhi University. He got his MBA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.