Episode 10: In Talks with Makarand Sahasrabuddhe

Recorded On 12^th May, 2026
In this episode, Makarand Sahasrabuddhe, development professional, coach, facilitator, and self-described flâneur - sits down with Vidya to trace a thirty-year career in a sector he wandered into almost on instinct. From a middle-class Mumbai childhood with books for company and a mother who returned to her education after a twelve-year gap, to an IIT Bombay degree he realised within four months he did not want, to a small Pune NGO he joined straight out of IIM Ahmedabad - opting out of placements as the only one in his batch - Makarand’s story is the long, quiet refusal of an expected path.

Makarand begins with an endowment he names without sentiment: books at home, an English-medium school chosen by parents who themselves had studied in Kannada and Marathi, and the genetic lottery of good health. The break from script arrives during a two-month internship during his MBA, at a small NGO led by ex-IAS officer V. Srinivasan. Two months in, Makarand was offered a job; he took it.

Makarand spent thirteen years at Oxfam, starting in Afghanistan and moving steadily up through wider remits - five country programmes across South Asia, ten across the Horn of Africa, and finally a global role covering everywhere Oxfam works. On the development sector itself, he is candid about what is and is not working. Funding is shrinking, governments around the world are clamping down on NGOs.

The episode closes with his advice to a twenty-two-year-old looking at inequality and wanting to help: You do not have to join an NGO or the development sector. Find a purpose, do your job honestly and well, and a way to contribute will find you.
To download the episode transcript, click here