Kristin Kagetsu
Co-Founders & Chief Executive Officer, Saathi
Ahmedabad, India
Kristin Kagetsu is one of the co-founders and chief executive officer of Saathi, a social enterprise dedicated to providing an end-to-end solution for sanitary protection to women in India. Saathi aims to empower local communities via a local supply chain, give girls and women access to safe feminine hygiene products, and find a solution for upcycling pads into compost, biogas, and biodigesters to reduce carbon emissions. Saathi has won the HBS New Venture Competition, Asia Society’s Action Lab Grant, Asia Social Innovation Challenge, Circular Board’s Pitch with Purpose event, 3M Young Innovators Challenge, and participated in MassChallenge.
Kristin has a passion for engineering design that makes a direct impact on people’s lives. As an undergraduate student, she worked on multiple projects with the MIT Design Lab (D-Lab) in Brazil, Nicaragua, and India. Her first product launch was of a set of natural dye crayons that she developed with an NGO in Uttarakhand where she fell in love with India. Kristin also volunteered with the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE), working to structure and expand the national collegiate team to better support over 60 collegiate chapters, as well as to develop SASE leadership in the Northeast. She was an MIT DLab ScaleUps Fellow, TEDx speaker, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia Fellow and currently resides in India. Kristin received her Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.”