Asha Srikantiah is a professor at the Hive at the Claremont Colleges, where she teaches human centered design and innovation to students from across the consortium, and beyond. She is passionate about building new initiatives that tackle real human problems, and excited by the intersection of business strategy and design.
Prior to joining the faculty at Harvey Mudd College, Asha spent 20 years in industry, starting in the film and media industries with companies including Viacom Productions and New Line Cinema. 10 years into her career, Asha wanted to channel her creative energy towards social good – and joined a new product innovation group within Fidelity Investments. There, she built Fidelity Student Debt Relief Program – a social enterprise that increases financial equity by helping people pay down student debt through contributions from their employers. As an “intrapreneur”, her seven year journey with this effort spanned from the earliest stages of design research and new product development, to the messy middle of scaling a product line and growing a team, through ultimately achieving market leadership and successfully advocating for new legislation to save borrowers even more money.
After nearly 10 years at Fidelity, Asha was ready for the next career challenge, and is excited to be part of the Claremont College community, empowering a new generation of social entrepreneurs.