Tanuja Bahal

Tanuja Bahal is a seasoned leader with more than three decades of hands-on experience in nonprofit operations and strategy, fundraising, and organizational design in corporate/nonprofit environments. Her early career was in international brand/product marketing across the Middle East and India. After immigrating to the US with her family she consulted in marketing for Sun Microsystems, Cadence and other technology startups.

Tanuja’s move to Silicon Valley led to her realization that women bore the brunt of assimilation and cultural adaptation, leading to her activism in the San Francisco Bay Area’s South Asian community. In 2013 she was honored for her work as a Community Hero by State Senator Bob Weikowski. Her work as Executive Director of the India Community Center, (the first and largest Community Center in the US dedicated to serving the needs of the South Asian diaspora) was focused on creating a financially sustainable model that supported the myriad needs of the multi-generational South Asian community.

Tanuja is passionate about building communities but beyond that, she also has a deep love for the creative space and its intersection with social justice. Since leaving the ICC, she has focused on nonprofit consulting specifically around strategic projects in the areas of arts access and workforce development. Committed to volunteering and service Tanuja served as Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Board Chair, Treasurer and CEO Search Committee Chair. In addition she serves on the CreaTV board and has also served on the boards of the India Community Center and the 1947 Partition Archives.

Tanuja is motivated by her journey as an immigrant, a woman of color and a mother of two. And in many ways, all of her work deals with the integral issues of access and community engagement.