Sheetal Vyas, who has served as the organisation’s Founding Executive Director will assume the role of Chief Investment Officer.  Lalwani was most recently Vice President of Programmes at Luminate, a global philanthropic organisation, where he led the strategy for funding independent media. 

Lalwani is not new to IFPIM. Alongside James Deane, he co-founded IFPIM and has been working closely with the team and the media development sector over a number of years to launch the Fund. 

He said, “I am thrilled to be joining IFPIM and am committed to supporting a global news media that is independent, sustainable and promotes diversity and inclusion in media ecosystems.” 

Mark Thompson and Maria Ressa, co-chairs of IFPIM said Lalwani was the ideal candidate to lead IFPIM. “Nishant brings a wealth of experience in fund management and media resourcing coupled with a passion for development. We welcome him to IFPIM.” 

Vyas said she was excited to be working alongside Lalwani. 

“Nishant has already been integral to everything we have achieved and his ideas about how media funding must evolve to meet new challenges will help us build IFPIM as a robust funding mechanism for global media.”  

Lalwani’s media development experience includes supporting investigative journalism, press freedom efforts, the combatting of misinformation, and innovative financial models for editorial independence. He also led Luminate’s work in narrative change, and was responsible for strategy, learning and impact for the philanthropy. Prior to joining Luminate, Nishant helped launch the non-profit Global Innovation Fund (GIF) with Professor Michael Kremer, who later won the Nobel Prize for Economics. As COO, he led GIF’s investment process and venture support team, making investments and grants across the world, including Burkina Faso, Pakistan and the Philippines. Nishant was also on the founding team of the Monitor Inclusive Markets (MIM) group in India, which sought to drive scale among market-based solutions to poverty.