Co-Founder & Principal

Specialization: Global development, health, education, economic empowerment, and sustainability.

Saugato is an applied economist with 15 years of experience in international development and applied behavioral economics. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MPhil in Economics from Cambridge University, and bachelor's degrees from Cambridge and the University of Delhi, India.

Dr Datta specializes in the nuanced application of behavioral insights to program and policy design in low- and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa, as well as the evaluation of these and other interventions using randomized control trials and other experimental and quasi-experimental methods.  He works with multilateral institutions, governments, and NGOs to identify and analyze challenges limiting the impact of development programs, and subsequently to design and test solutions to them. Over the past decade, he has led the international development portfolio at ideas42, a leading applied behavioral science firm, where he has overseen over 50 projects applying behavioral insights to issues in global health, social protection, sustainability, governance, labor market programs, and education, including over 20 randomized control trials in over 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  

His research has been published in leading academic and policy journals, including the Journal of Development Economics, Review of Income and Wealth, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and the World Bank Economic Review, as well as several public health journals including Frontiers in Public Health and the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. He has also contributed chapters to several books on behavioral economics, as well as the forthcoming "Handbook of Economics of Discrimination and Affirmative Action". He has also written extensively on international development and the application of behavioral economics to policy problems in development in the popular press and is regularly invited to speak on these topics at policy fora and panels at the World Bank, the United Nations, and other bilateral and multilateral institutions. He has been an invited reviewer at the Journal of Development Economics, World Development, and Economic Development and Cultural Change.

Prior to his career at ideas42, Dr Datta was the Economics Correspondent at the Economist in London, leading that publication's coverage of global trade, applied microeconomics, economic development, and academic economics. He has also worked as an economist at the World Bank. His research has been featured in the Guardian, the New York Times, and other leading media outlets.

Co-Founder & Principal

Specialization: Marketing, consumer choices, health, financial inclusion.

Neela is a behavioral scientist with experience advising, training teams, setting up units and implementing behavioral science interventions across the private sector, academic and social impact sectors. She was named in Forbes magazine as “Ten Behavioral Scientists You Should Know. ” She has a PhD in Marketing (Consumer Behavior) from the Wharton School, U of Pennsylvania and an MBA from IIM Calcutta, India. 

Neela is the Executive Director of the Yale Research Initiative for Innovation and Scale (Y-RISE) and also consults independently with private and social sector organizations on behavioral science challenges. Previously, she was the Founding Director of the Center for Social and Behavior Change at Ashoka University, India. The Center was funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance the study of behavioral science-led interventions for populations living in poverty in India. Neela’s leadership at the Center led to the creation of India’s first policy nudge unit at the Indian government. 

Neela has consulted with several organizations to apply behavioral science for development including the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP), Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, Surgo Ventures and Noora Health. She has designed and taught behavioral science courses both to university students and to professionals in NGOs. 

Neela combines her skills in the social sector with deep private sector expertise. Over 15 years in the private sector she led teams in marketing, strategy and sales at Nestle, Unilever, Accenture, and PepsiCo, across India and in global roles. She created the first-ever behavioral science unit at PepsiCo to shift the portfolio towards consumption of healthier options. 

Neela’s research and writing has been published in Nature Human Behavior, Harvard Business Review, the Lancet Regional Health, Behavioral Scientist and Apolitical among others publications. 

Neela is on the Board of Advisors at the University of Pennsylvania for the

Masters of Behavioral and Decision Sciences program. She is also on the board of Grameen Foundation and The Life You Can Save (the organization founded by Peter Singer to catalyze effective giving). Finally, she is a Fellow at the Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Re-imagining India's health System. 

Co-Founder & Principal

Specialization: Governance, conflict, education, democracy, diplomacy

Josh s an internationally recognized expert in behavioral innovation and design. He was most recently Executive Director at Beyond Conflict, an international nonprofit organization specializing in the promotion of pluralistic democracy, violence reduction and building sustainable peace. Previously he was responsible for a large portfolio of behavioral design and innovation programs in the areas of international governance and livelihoods while a Managing Director at ideas42, where he also played a leading role in establishing internal behavioral capacity in large international organizations and developing country governments. Prior to joining ideas42, Josh was a policy advisor in Côte d’Ivoire’s Ministry of Planning and Development and a researcher working with the World Bank on labor market access issues in Morocco and Tunisia, in addition to previous roles at Princeton University, the National Democratic Institute and others. 

Josh has advised more than 25 governments and 15 United Nations entities on applying behavioral science to improve policy objectives. His primary domains of interest include public administration reform, conflict reduction, peace process support, early childhood education, economic mobility and transitional justice. Josh has a bachelors in international development economics and Middle Eastern studies from New York University and a masters in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He speaks fluent Arabic and French..

Co-Founder & Principal

Specialization: Health, education, global development, governance, legal reform, human rights.

Varun is Non-Resident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution, and Lecturer of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Previously, he was an economist in the World Bank’s research department, where he founded and headed the World Bank’s behavioral science unit, eMBeD. He was co-director of the World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behavior. He has served on the editorial boards of the journals Behavioral Public Policy, BMJ Global Health, and Health and Human Rights, as well as on the World Economic Forum Council on Behavior, the WHO Technical Advisory Group for Behavioral Science, the OECD Expert Group on Behavioural Insights, the Board of the Behavioral Economics Action Research Centre at the University of Toronto, and the American Political Science Association Task Force on Democratic Imperatives. His research has appeared in journals such as PNAS, American Political Science Review, Journal of Political Philosophy, and World Bank Economic Review, and has been covered in The New York Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, Le Monde, Forbes, The Hindu, The Guardian, and Frontline. His publications include Courting Social Justice: Judicial Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights in the Developing World and The Community Paralegal Movement and the Pursuit of Justice, and School Choice in Chile. 

His policy expertise encompasses behavioral economics, health care and education, and law and development. He has worked intensively in dozens of countries, including Brazil, Chile, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Mozambique, Nigeria, and South Africa. He has BA from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Princeton University, and has held positions as Visiting Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Withrow Chair at Deep Springs College, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Economics at ILADES in Santiago, Chile.