| Keynote: Dr. Bijna Kotak Dasani, MBE, FRSA Champions of Courage Awards Celebration of Recipients Ethical Impact Recipient: Ethical Impact Recipient: |
Champions of Courage: Ethical Impact Awardee
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Champions of Courage: Ethical Impact Awardee
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Dr. Bijna Kotak Dasani, MBE, FRSA
Dr. Bijna Kotak Dasani, MBE, FRSA
With 25 years of experience in Global Financial Services, Bijna is a former Investment Banker turned Entrepreneur, Investor and Venture Capitalist. She has served some of Wall Street’s leading firms, Monarchies and now also serves the Investment Committees and Advisory Boards of multiple Venture Capital Funds across the globe, and is (interim) Chief Investment Officer to a Portfolio of Venture Capital Funds (sectors) in the GCC region. Dr. Bijna also invests on behalf of her family’s Family Office and advises ventures across sectors on diversification and expansion strategy.
Bijna is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA), an alumnus of University of Oxford and De Montfort University. She holds Venture Capital certifications from The University of California Berkeley Law, Venture Forward, NVCA and Newton. Bijna features in the following books: Future Relevant Me 3.0 (2025), Disruptors Volume II (2023), Bias Breakers (2023), The Seamless Middle East e-book (2022), CIO NET’s Digital Transformation Cookbook (all 2022), Aspire To (2021), The Ultimate Professional Networker’s Guidebook Volume 1 (2019) and Women Kind: Unlocking the power of women supporting women (2018). Bijna is Venture Capitalist of the Year, India (2025) as felicitated by Fortunna Global, she has been recognised as Entrepreneur of the Year (2025) in the Finance & Venture Capital category by Excellence Awards as part of Dr Yasemin Yazan LLC (USA). Bijna has also been appreciated by Mumbai Uncensored’s 10 Women, One Nation: Celebrating Indian Women Achievers on Republic Day (2025).
Previously, she has been awarded Fox Story India’s Woman Face of the year (2023), in Fortune India’s Most Dynamic Personalities List (2022), a Global Icon for Services to DE&I, WASME (2022), and Yahoo Finance and Involve People’s Top Ethnic Minority Exec and Women Leader across industries globally; Pride of India across 100+ countries (2022), Advocate of the Year for DE&I (2021) by Morgan Stanley and Digital Leader of the Year (2021) by Seamless Middle East and Terrapin under the patronage of HH Sheikh Saif Bin Zayad Al Nahyan. Bijna is an appointed Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (2020) by Her Majesty, The (Late) Queen Elizabeth II. In this capacity she is also a member of the UK Government’s Economy Committee, led by the Department for Business and Trade. Bijna was
Bijna was named Britain’s Rising Star, UK Women of Inspiration awards (2019), #29 in the World’s Top 100 Women Execs by Yahoo and HERoes (2019), one of Top 50 Women to Watch (2019) by Cranfield University, #EMRoleModels19 Top 100 Ethnic Minority Executives (2019), Innovate Finance Women in Fintech Powerlist (2019-18), one of the #TechWomen100 (2019), as ‘Business Role Model of the Year’ by the Women in IT Awards & Amazon (2019), by the Lloyds Banking Group Top 100 BAME Role Models List (2019, 2018) as a ‘Global Champion’ (#60) of the Top 100 Executive #FTHERoes18 by the Financial Times (2018) and awarded an Honorary Doctorate from De Montfort University (2018) for her ‘outstanding services to Business’. She was honoured at the House of Lords (UK), at the NRI Pride of India World Summit (2017) for ‘Making India Proud’. Bijna is credited as a Top 50 Visionary Young Leader in Business, by Henley Business School (2017), one of 35 leading British Businesswomen under 35, by Management Today, Accenture and The Telegraph (2015) and has received 15 further honours including the National Diversity Awards (2012) and the Asian Women of Achievement Awards (2010). Bijna is the International Women’s Day Young Achiever of the Year (2006).