We are a small team that bears overall responsibility for managing the foundation. We love what we do, and we do it with a passion.
Koolesh Shah
Founder Trustee
Born and raised in Britain, Koolesh Shah founded London Town Group in 1988, a private sector corporation focused on cutting-edge performance in four main pillars – Real Estate, Philanthropy, Energy and Technology. Koolesh was named Hotelier of the Year at the Asian Business Awards.
Koolesh is a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother and is Chairman of the Sri Aurobindo Trust.
The Trust has introduced modules on the teachings of Sri Aurobindo at SOAS, University of London since 2017 and has organised regular informative visits to the Ashram in Pondicherry and to Auroville.
The Trust has organised permanent major exhibitions in Auroville on Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mothers teachings and has enabled the English of Savitri to be published.
Throughout the past 20 years the Trust has been a substantial doner for the Matrimandir in the centre of Auroville. It has sponsored and co- produced several films on the life and teaching of Sri Aurobindo, the most recent being released in 2023 – Sri Aurobindo and the Earth Future.
In UK’s first Hindu crematorium, Aum Crematorium, the Trust has sponsored a prayer room based on the teachings of Sri Aurobindo on the continuing journey of the soul.
Koolesh is also founder of the Koolesh Shah Family Foundation a UK charity, our objective is to harness the activities and initiatives of the family’s ongoing philanthropy work.
Koolesh has been involved in the Jain community, having been President of the Jain Social Group London a role he held between 1986 and 1996. The organisation has over 60,000 members and 425 groups worldwide.
He was a founder member of the Vanik Business Group, which enabled the business community to further engage together and mutually flourish.
Koolesh actively supports Making The Leap, which is a charity focused on promoting social mobility in the community through inspirational speaking and mentoring opportunities to students from disadvantaged background.
Kavita Doshi
Trustee
Kavita is a Law graduate from the University of Cambridge, with 15 years experience in strategic management consultancy, hotel operations and property development. She is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya where she heads the Group’s real estate growth in the region, leading their commercial and residential interests.
As a woman leading projects in the construction industry, Kavita pioneers empowerment of women within the industry, supporting fellow female property developers, and championing high ratios of female construction workers on site, as well as pushing the importance of environmentally conscious construction, not only through ESG compliance, but also through replanting of trees that are lost through the construction process. Most recently, she completed the Grade A commercial development The Cube on Riverside Drive which attained Advanced Edge certification, and has pushed the boundaries when it comes to eco-conscious design and construction.
Kavita has a passion for philanthropy, and founded her charitable foundation named Charity Connect in 2019 which carries out daily feeding programs across the city, channels donations to trusted, vetted projects within informal settlements, and manages and runs several sustainability projects aimed at providing economic empowerment and enhancing education opportunities for those in need. Projects include women’s tailoring training centres in Mathare specifically aimed at women affected by disabilities and HIV, a social enterprise named Inuka which empowers women tailors to run their own tailoring enterprise, construction of two rehabilitation homes for children and young adults rescued from the streets, sanitation blocks, borehole projects to enhance clean water availability to local communities, and investment in technology labs for various educational institutions.
Kavita is also a trained fitness instructor specializing in Barre – another passion of hers through which she champions mindful movement, and finding deep strength and centring through fitness.
Dr Nikhil Shah
Trustee
Nikhil read Mathematics at the University of Cambridge before undertaking an industry-funded PhD at Imperial College in earth imaging technology for energy applications.
He is the CEO and co-founder of energy technology company S-Cube as well as co-founder of Hotel Cloud developing generative AI based revenue management solutions.
Nikhil won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award 2019 in association with State Bank of India at the annual Asian Business Awards in London.
In the same year, Nikhil also won the Young Entrepreneur of the year award by TiE handed by ICICI Bank.
His key interests are in meeting global energy demand, reducing emissions and sustainability of the planet’s environment.