Sonali Mehta-Rao

Entrepreneur | Early-Stage Start-up Advisor & Impact Investor | Board Member | Acumen Fellow

Sonali is an Unreasonable Mentor. Sonali was part of Unreasonable Impact Americas 2023, and has advised over 15 Unreasonable companies.

Sonali Mehta-Rao, Founder of Ahaana Ventures, is an early-stage impact investor, startup advisor, and ICF-trained leadership coach with over a decade of global entrepreneurial experience in social business innovation. As Co-founder and President of Mela Artisans, she successfully created a sustainable global market for Indian artisans, leading the company to its first $1M in revenue and Series A financing. As India Director of global fintech company Tala and Co-founder, Chief Growth Officer at Awaaz.De, she worked to expand access to finance for the underbanked, reaching 10M+ low-income, rural women pan-India. Sonali is an Acumen Fellow, and serves as an Advisor and Visiting Entrepreneur at Stanford, MIT and Yale, and on the South Asia jury of Cartier Women’s Initiative (CWI).