Artico Professionals
Amit Banka
Amit Banka founded WeNaturalists with a simple motive – to bring equal opportunities to the nature professionals and organizations from across the world. Apart from being an entrepreneur, he is also an ardent nature lover, wilderness explorer, and bird photographer.
Amit’s journey towards building an ecosystem for the People of Nature began two years back but the seeds were sown in his childhood. A critical milestone in his life occurred while he was working with Swades Foundation on holistic living projects in rural India. It was here where he realized the need for creating sustainable business models revolving around nature. The learnings from these interventions reinforced his belief that our interaction with nature needs to evolve to create a larger impact. This tremendously influenced his outlook towards creating WeNaturalists.
Holding an MBA in Finance and a Bachelors in Science, Amit has led a distinguished career over 2 decades and spanning across sectors, while identifying key trends and offering strategic solutions to businesses leading to significant value creation. Amit has had successful stints with various corporate houses including Disney UTV Group and Zee Group and has founded multiple ventures in business transformation, crowdfunding, online gaming, and F&B. Amit brings extensive experience across sectors and around building businesses, global operations, strategy, and finance including M&As, fundraising, and IPOs. He has been instrumental in shaping several businesses across their lifecycle, raising over USD 2bn across geographies, and managing a USD 200mn fund during this time.
Christopher Whitlatch
Christopher has more than twenty years of marketing, branding and management experience. He works with nonprofits, startups and social enterprise projects and initiatives, helping them reach new markets and grow their businesses.
He currently is the Communications Director of the International Rhino Foundation helping to save rhinos in the wild in Asia and Africa. Previously, he served as the first CEO of the Mon Valley Alliance, an economic development nonprofit. He also spent seven years with The Pittsburgh Foundation, directing the digital initiatives and communications at the community foundation. There he helped launch and develop Pittsburgh Gives, an online giving platform that pumped more than $40 million into nonprofit organizations across the area.
He has a degree in journalism and mass communications from New York University. Christopher’s passions are nature, wildlife, toys, and stories.
Pooja Gupta
Pooja has 23+ years of experience working in the tech industry, playing a wide spectrum of roles as an engineer, team lead and technical lead. In her current role as a Sr. Software Engineer at Bloomberg, Pooja is responsible for client interaction, understanding their pain-points, developing and implementing solutions. Last 10 yrs, she has been actively involved in mentoring colleagues who are looking for a career change. She has been an active member of the Business Engagement pillar of the North American DE&I task force at Bloomberg. As a mom of two elementary school kids, Pooja is extremely passionate about helping fellow mothers who are struggling to get back to the workforce. She has successfully mentored women to rebuild their career and achieve professional excellence. In her free time Pooja likes to hike with her family and friends. Pooja is passionate about staying engaged in community and values personal growth through storytelling and outreach.