Menaka Rodriguez

Executive Director

Menaka Rodriguez has Master’s degrees in Archaeology and Indian History from the Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, India and Arts Administration from the University of New Orleans, United States.

Menaka Rodriguez has over two decades of experience in institutional management, programming and fundraising for a range of arts organisations including museums, arts festivals, art councils and a theatre company in the United States and India. She joined IFA in 2007 as a fundraiser and has been instrumental in building and developing the Individual Donors initiative at IFA. At IFA, she led the Resource Mobilisation and Outreach team for eight years, served as a co-facilitator for SMART (Strategic Management in the Art of Theatre) and managed a part of the Project 560 programme. She assumed office as the Executive Director on June 01, 2023, after completing 16 years with the Foundation.

With expertise in archaeology, research and strategic planning, she has worked on projects for several cultural institutions including INTACH; Vasant Sheth Memorial Foundation; Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Poland; Society for South Asian Studies, United Kingdom; and Afghan Family Guidance Association (AFGA). Menaka has also served on the Faculty of Archaeology and Museum Studies at Madras Christian College, Chennai.

She was an ARThinkSouthAsia (ATSA) Fellow in 2012-13 and was awarded ‘Fundraiser of the Year’ at the India NGO Awards 2016 instituted by the Resource Alliance, India and Rockefeller Foundation. Menaka had also been a part of ARThinkSouthAsia (ATSA) Train the Trainer programme aimed at creating a cohort of art management trainers in the South Asian region. She was one of the international participants selected for the Arts Leaders Programme supported by the Australia Council for the Arts for 2017-18. She was also a resident mentor on Resource Mobilisation for IDEX Fellowships.

Menaka has represented the foundation at diverse forums and panels on the arts, grantmaking, fundraising, and philanthropy.

Her interests include reading, travelling, jazz, sculpture and the performing arts.