Built on an unlikely belief.
That the most overlooked lives can change the most lives.

Compassion Unlimited Plus Action

Advisory Partner

For over 35 years, CUPA has been at the forefront of animal welfare in India - rescuing, rehabilitating, and advocating for animals across Bengaluru and beyond. They are one of the most trusted names in the sector.

CUPA mentors and guides HeartDogs as we build India's first systematic programme combining rescued Indies, home-based training, and paid women foster-trainers for assistance and therapy dog work. Their experience and deep knowledge of the sector are helping shape what HeartDogs becomes.

Vijay Raghunathan

Founder & Head of Operations

Vijay spent over two decades leading technology, operations, and business growth across startups and global companies. His first dog was a rescued Indie, and that experience stayed with him. He started HeartDogs with a question: could a high-quality assistance dog programme, built around rescued Indies, also create paid skilled work for women in rural India and better support for people with disabilities? At HeartDogs, he leads the organisation and focuses on building a model that can grow without losing its purpose.

Amrita Madiah

Co-Founder & Head of Communities & Outreach

Amrita has spent more than twenty five years building communities and leading people initiatives across organisations including Adobe and Yahoo. Her home has always had room for rescued Indies, many of whom wandered in as strays and gradually became family. She co-founded HeartDogs because the mission felt personal - dogs and people in need are never far from her mind. At HeartDogs, she leads community engagement, working closely with the people we serve, the communities we work in, and the wider public.

Anita BP

Head of Partnerships & Alliances

Anita spent more than two decades in strategy and business leadership across PwC, IBM, and Star India, working in Asia, Europe, and North America. A lifelong dog lover who shares her home with a cat for practical reasons, she knows that love for animals does not always follow a straight line. She joined HeartDogs because she saw the opportunity to help build something with lasting impact - and she intends to see it through. At HeartDogs, she leads partnerships that strengthen the organisation and help expand its reach.

Kirsten Dillon

Expert Advisor - Assistance Dog Training & Standards

Kirsten has spent more than twenty years training assistance dogs across several countries. She is a Clinical Animal Behaviourist, author of assistance dog training guidelines used in the UK and Germany, and a pioneer of prisoner-led assistance dog programmes. She works with HeartDogs because she believes rescued Indies can become exceptional assistance dogs and that India deserves standards built for its own context. At HeartDogs, she leads the development of training standards, assessments, and certification protocols.

Siddharth Chandrasekhar

Advisor - Legal & Policies

Siddharth is an Advocate and Counsel at the Bombay High Court, and a Senior Panel Counsel with the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. He holds an LL.M. in International Corporate and Commercial Law from Queen Mary University of London. Outside the courtroom, he is a committed animal welfare advocate who has always believed that animals deserve legal protection as much as people do. At HeartDogs, he advises on the legal and regulatory framework as we grow.

Steffen Schubert

Steffen brings over 35 years in capital markets and corporate governance across Europe, the UAE, and the United States. He played a central role in creating NASDAQ Dubai - from authoring the founding white paper to building and running the exchange as CEO. A Chartered Director (IoD UK) and Chairman of the Education Committee at the GCC Board of Directors Institute, he knows what it takes to build institutions that last. He backed HeartDogs because he believes governance and purpose are not in conflict - and that getting the foundations right is what makes scale possible.

Kirsten Dillon

Kirsten has spent over twenty years leading assistance dog training programmes across multiple countries. A Clinical Animal Behaviourist and author of training guidelines used in the UK and Germany, she pioneered prisoner-led dog training programmes and works exclusively with science-backed, force-free methods. She was one of the first to believe that Indies could meet the standard - and has been proving it ever since.

Dr. Jörg Schultz

Jörg is a computational biologist working at the intersection of technology, data, and artificial intelligence to make dog training more structured, measurable, and welfare-focused. In the setting up stage of the HeartDogs initiative, he contributed to its scientific, technical, and organisational foundations.

Esther Ratsch

Esther is a graduate biologist, animal physiotherapist, and animal health practitioner with a focus on welfare and pain-free care. She combines physical treatment with behavioural awareness, and brings academic depth in bioinformatics and molecular biology to her work. She backed HeartDogs for its science-first, force-free approach - before the foundation had a name on paper.

Siddharth Dhamija

Siddharth has spent nearly three decades building and scaling revenue-focused teams across fintech, telecom, and digital payments - including leadership roles at PayPal, Razorpay, and Subex. He brings an execution-first mindset and backed HeartDogs for its disciplined approach to building something that lasts.

Shankar Roddam

Shankar is an Operating Partner at Singularity AMC, with a background spanning enterprise software, SaaS, and emerging technologies. He has scaled organisations from early growth to maturity and brings board-level perspective to the work. He backed HeartDogs for its founding team, operational discipline, and long-term approach to building responsibly.

Michael Siebold

Michael is a senior legal professional with over three decades of international experience in corporate law, infrastructure, and cross-border transactions. A former senior partner at a leading German law firm, he brings deep institutional knowledge to HeartDogs. He backed the foundation for its governance-first mindset and ethical foundation - qualities he looks for before lending his name to anything.