Bharath Kadaba, Ph.D

President

Bharath is an innovation leader with expertise in creating global products leveraging next-generation technologies. He is currently an advisor to several early-stage companies. Prior to this, Bharath was the Chief Innovation Officer and SVP of Technology Futures at Intuit. In this role, Bharath built a team that operated in an environment that promoted bold thinking and risk-taking. Bharath also held other engineering leader roles at Intuit. Before Intuit, Bharath was SVP of Media Engineering at Yahoo! Before joining Yahoo, Bharath was a technology leader at two Silicon Valley startups. He also served as GM of Application Integration Products at Siebel Systems and pioneered Internet Content services as EVP and GM at News Corporation. Bharath’s career began at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, where he led a team to build the world's first gigabit-speed routers for the NSFNET Internet backbone. Bharath has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Bharath, at Intuit, learned Design Thinking as a way to tackle unsolved problems, and it truly altered the way he approached a variety of challenges in every aspect of his work and life. Bharath was attracted to join the board Marshmallow Minds, excited by the mission of teaching the Design Thinking skill to kids starting as early as Kindergarten. Unfortunately, every infant’s/toddler’s natural curiosity to learn and experiment with everything around them erodes as they grow up. Marshmallow Minds method encourages, reinforces, and likely permanently builds Design Thinking into their DNA in early school years. Bharath believes that his grandchildren’s generation needs this critical skill to tackle the job disruptions due to Artificial Intelligence-led revolution; Design Thinking makes them lifelong learners letting them pivot their skills as necessary. 

Harini Senthilvasan, MSEE

Founder & Executive Director at Marshmallow Minds

Harini received her Master's degree in engineering from Texas A&M University. After working in the wireless technology sector for 15 years with different companies such as Broadcom, Ubicom (Parent: Qualcomm Atheros), and Texas Instruments, she went back to school for a year in 2015 at Stanford University to complete her Advanced Project Management program. She took inspiration from the Design Thinking and the entrepreneurial nature of the program that led to the foundation of the nonprofit.

Since 2015, her priority has shifted to early education as she sees a way to make things better. She firmly believes that by teaching children at a young age to empathize with real-world problems, allowing them to explore different STEAM tools and engineer innovative solutions, children can gain a holistic learning experience that will nurture human values and human-centered approach to problem-solving.

She is currently spearheading the organization as the CEO with the support of her team. She is leading the development of Marshmallow Minds' curriculum, which combines Design Thinking with STEAM and emphasizes the need for empathy in the hearts of young minds to act as the driving force for STEAM-based innovation. 

Anand Vaidyanathan, MBA

Anand joined the Marshmallow Minds Board in 2017 and completed his 6-year term successfully in 2023. Marshmallow Minds thanks Anand for his outstanding contribution.

Nirmala Ranganathan, MCA

Nirmala joined the Marshmallow Minds Board in 2018 and completed her 6-year term successfully in 2024. Marshmallow Minds thanks Nirmala for our outstanding contribution.