Our Founding Members
The JKC Foundation is promoted by Lillka Cuttaree, the daughter of Jaya Krishna Cuttaree in collaboration with her mother Ms Saraswatee Cuttaree.
A former Senior Director of the Mauritius Board of Investment and Advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office of the Republic of Mauritius, Lillka has built twenty years of work experience in the area of international trade, cluster development and investment promotion, gender policy, leadership, entrepreneurship and capacity building.
Her expertise lies in her ability to project and implement successfully international initiatives within complex multi-cultural environments requiring social dialogue and leadership, public-private expertise, corporate governance and strategic implementation skills.
In 2011, she co-founded the KIP Center for Leadership, an executive education center to shape talents and ideas within the business community in the region.
A passionate promoter of girls and women rights, Lillka is a Fellow of the Vital Voices Leadership Network (USA), NGO launched by Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright and since May 2018 an Oval Office Fellow from the Women in Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at Harvard, promoting women in politics.
She has launched over the past years a number of national initiatives to empower and promote gender diversity differently in Mauritius and the region, including leadership programmes both at corporate level and in schools across the island. Through the support from the Harvard Women in Public Policy Center, she created in 2018 the Blossom Initiative, a Women Leadership Center for Africa, based in Mauritius (www.blossominitiative.org). In 2019, she launched the JKC (Just, Kind and Caring) Foundation, dedicated to education, empowerment and social justice in underprivilege areas in Mauritius.
Lillka is fully bilingual French/English, holds a degree in Political Sciences and an MBA from Sciences Po (France), a Master in Economics and Industrial Strategy from University Paris Dauphine (France) and a Master in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School (USA).
As a Harvard Mason Fellow, she has built a strong international network in emerging markets and is dedicated about bringing meaningful change in Africa in the area of girls and women rights, gender equality, education and empowerment.
She is a frequent local and international speaker the areas of education and entrepreneurship, gender policy, women rights, empowerment programs and sustainability.
