Poornima Dore

Dr. Poornima Dore is an Economist and Business Leader, driving impact through finance, innovation and digital transformation. Her exposure ranging from villages, businesses to board rooms, has made her a strong advocate of harnessing risk capital for sustainable growth and development. She has served on the Boards of select institutions as well as Ministerial Committees with the Government of India and is recognised as one of the top 100 Analytics Leaders in South Asia.
A member of the TAS cadre, Dr. Dore has worked across sectors over close to two decades and catalysed private sector investment and action in digital public goods, market access, jobs, urbanization, while also designing special institutional programs on SME and Social Finance. She is currently a visiting professor at XLRI, and advises organisations and leaders keen on future readiness, deep purpose and long-term impact. She previously served as Director – Analytics, Insights & Impact at the Tata Trusts. Her unit developed the pioneering area of Data Driven Governance, anchoring investment, on ground teams and advisory work with governments and tech start-ups on performance mapping, strategic planning and service delivery across regions. Prior to this, she led the Structured Investments vertical at Tata Capital Ltd, completing marquee transactions in automotive, pharma, tech, insurance and other sectors, through equity, preferred and mezzanine capital.
She has a PhD. in Economics from IIT Bombay with an interest in regional growth and industry drivers, and access to skills, finance and markets. An XLRI Jamshedpur alumnus, she holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and is a Principal’s Award holder from Lady Shri Ram College. Her other interests include Carnatic vocals and hard rock. She has been the drummer of BodhiTree, a band from the early 2000s with some memorable cult hits to their credit. She also enjoys travel and reading – a fuel as important as coffee and good company.