Shyam Sundaram is the Global Operations Partner at Dalberg Advisors, where he provides leadership to many of the firm’s internal operations functions, including finance, people, knowledge management and legal. He works with regional and country operations leads to ensure smooth operational functioning across the firm’s 20+ offices.  

Shyam is also a leader in our Talent & Leadership practice area – working with mission-driven organizations and firms to find the best strategies and approaches to attract, activate and unleash their talent. Shyam also leads much of our work on strategy and organizational effectiveness. He helps clients to define a vision and identify optimal organizational structures and facilitates effective change management processes for large and complex organizations.

Shyam’s recent work includes designing multiple leadership development and coaching programs for NGOs, multilaterals and foundations to help them build their skills in leadership, strategy, and monitoring & evaluation; helping one of the world’s largest international NGOs undertake a comprehensive re-organization of its programmatic teams around the world; and working with a major foundation to refine its strategy and vision around its nutrition investments in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Prior to his current roles, Shyam served in other leadership roles at Dalberg including as Director of the Washington DC office, Global Chief of Staff, and Global Ombudsperson. Before joining Dalberg, Shyam worked across a number of multilateral organizations and NGOs, including the World Bank Group, Inter-American Development Bank, and the International Crisis Group. He has published his perspectives on issues of leadership and strategy in the social impact sector in multiple publications, including Devex and Huffington Post.

Shyam holds a MS with Honors from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a BA with Honors from Brown University. He speaks French and Tamil.