Terjas Desai
Tejas has worked in the development sector in India for the most part of her career starting 2001 to date. By qualification she is a Chartered Accountant with a conscious specialisation in the social sector in India first as a team member in non-profit organisations in India and then as an independent external consultant since 2011. She has worked with organisations across the development spectrum from small grassroot organisations to international funding agencies in multiple roles as a management consultant, internal auditor, trainer and advisor.
In the last 5 years, Tejas has also worked with organisations in other countries of Asia like Timor Leste, Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh. Her engagement is mainly through consultancy assignments which range from designing and implementing systems/ processes, financial/ operational evaluations and training/ capacity building of organisational teams at all levels.
Hindi, Gujarati and English.
Capacity-building, Objectivity, Safeguarding.
I have worked with a broad spectrum of non-profit organisations primarily in the development arena and as a financial auditor, the work of HQAI appealed to my Chartered Accountant sensibilities because it aims to standardise and benchmark best practices in highly subjective and dynamic aspects of programme delivery. This was something that many have tried and failed to do but the rigorous HQAI training and furthermore the process of auditing aims to ensure that there is an objective and evidence-based oversight process for benchmarking organisations against global standards of equitable and efficient programme delivery.
I also believe that though the majority of HQAI's audits are for humanitarian organisations, the CHS and auditing practices are equally relevant and replicable to development organisations. The work I have done with HQAI till date has enlightened me to different perspectives both in technical and contextual understanding which has helped in making me a better auditor and development professional. I hope to continue to learn with HQAI for the years to come.