Suneeta Kaimal

Suneeta has served as NRGI’s president and CEO since 2021.

Suneeta joined NRGI’s predecessor organization, the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI) in 2009 as the deputy director responsible for regional and country engagements across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa. Following a merger between RWI and the Natural Resource Charter in 2013, Suneeta became chief operating officer the resulting Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), ensuring NRGI’s strategy and approach was relevant, demand-driven and evidence-based. Overseeing the leadership and senior management teams, she guided the translation of the strategy into innovative, impactful thematic and regional programs and supported NRGI’s institutional effectiveness and sustainability. Suneeta served as interim president and chief executive officer in 2020, surmounting the strategic and operational challenges of the global pandemic.

Suneeta previously served as Vice-President of the board of directors of The International Center for Not-For-Profit Law, working to improve the legal environment for civil society, philanthropy, and public participation around the world. She was the first female civil society chair of the Open Government Partnership, an organization of reformers inside and outside of government from more than 75 countries and served on the steering committee for eight years. Suneeta was the first chair of the global council of Publish What You Pay, a civil society movement of more than 1,000 organizations working to improve natural resource governance. She is also a founding board member of Roots of Health, a local NGO focused on improving the health of women and girls and their communities, in the Philippines.

Suneeta holds a master’s in international affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and a B.A. from Duke University, where she was a Hart Leadership Fellow.