• CEO

    Dignity encompasses being fully human, and for thirty years, Krishanti Dharmaraj has built the frameworks, forged the alliances, and shaped the policies to make it real. Her work has transformed dignity and safety of women from aspiration into architecture, making it measurable, actionable, and sustained. Dignity Index Global is the culmination of that work: built from the inside out, grounded in what she has seen succeed and in what she knows has been missing to eliminate gender-based violence.

    At Dignity Index Global, Krishanti works across both the public and private sectors. With cities and governments, she conducts human rights readiness assessments and develops implementation strategies for institutions committed to embedding rights and dignity into governance. With industry, and grounded in human rights and ILO Convention 190, she helps manufacturers and lead firms build frameworks that are legally sound, practically transformative, and measurable over time.

    Her current roles reflect the breadth of that leadership. She serves as Independent Chair of the Board of RISE, advancing gender equality in global garment and footwear supply chains, and as a board member of the Feminist Alliance for Rights. She recently led the global strategy for the ILO C190 5th Anniversary, building alliances across governments, UN entities, trade unions, and civil society. She served as Independent Chair of the Dindigul Agreement, the landmark multi-stakeholder agreement addressing gender-based violence against women workers in Dindigul, India, and on the Governing Board of the UN Spotlight Initiative, a €500 million EU-UN fund to end gender-based violence globally.

    Krishanti is recognized as the architect of integrating human rights conventions into local governance, work that began with San Francisco’s landmark 1998 CEDAW Ordinance and now spans more than 60 jurisdictions in the US. She is the former Executive Director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University, co-founder of WILD for Human Rights and the Journalism Initiative to End Gender-Based Violence, housed at Rutgers University, and she is one of the initiators of the US Human Rights Network. She has held leadership roles with Amnesty International, Women Law and Development, Center for Asian Pacific American Women, and LaCasa de las Madres.

    A published author and sought-after keynote speaker, Krishanti brings to the stage the same precision and conviction that has defined thirty years of practice. She has addressed heads of government and city leaders, global brands and supply chain executives, UN forums and academic institutions across multiple continents, translating complex human rights frameworks into language that moves both people and institutions to act.

    Krishanti holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a Fellow of Salzburg Global.

  • Chief Program Officer

    Ardra Manasi leads program strategy, design, and delivery at Dignity Index Global, alongside stakeholder engagement. She is one of a small number of practitioners globally whose career has been built entirely at the intersection of gender, labour, and the international human rights frameworks that underpin DIG’s work.

    Since 2019, Ardra has focused on policy advocacy and partnership engagement around ILO Convention 190 (C190), the first international treaty to address violence and harassment in the world of work, and the foundation of DIG’s safety framework. In that time, she has built and led multi-stakeholder partnerships spanning the United Nations (UN), governments, philanthropic foundations, civil society organisations, trade unions, and the private sector, all directed at making the world of work safer for women across formal and informal sectors.

    Her supply chain expertise is equally direct. She served as Senior Program Coordinator for the Oversight Committee of the Dindigul Agreement, a landmark worker safety agreement in global garment supply chains, supporting the Independent Chair in working with global fashion brands, suppliers, and labour stakeholders to address gender-based violence. From 2024 to 2025, she convened and led the C190 Arc Task Force on behalf of Global Labor Justice, bringing together women leaders from twelve organisations across the Global North and South to advance labour and gender justice.

    Earlier in her career, Ardra worked at Rutgers University with the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, the initiating body of the Global 16 Days Campaign, a movement spanning over 6,000 organisations across 185 countries, where she led advocacy campaigns focused on femicide, gender-based violence, and C190 ratification. She has also advised the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs on migration and the Sustainable Development Goals and contributed to digital strategy for Plan International and UN Women.

    Ardra holds a Master of Arts in International Affairs from The New School, New York City, and a Master of Arts in Development Studies from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). Her writing and research have appeared in World Bank Blogs, HuffPost, PassBlue, andpeer-reviewed publications including the Routledge International Handbook of Sex Industry Research and journals focused on gender, technology, and development.

  • Industry Lead

    Pauline brings to Dignity Index Global a rare combination of academic rigour and private sector experience in human rights, gender, and workplace safety. With over five years spanning sustainability consulting, research, and institutional advisory work, she has designed human rights due diligence, developed strategies, and conducted impact assessments, translating complex evidence into decision-relevant action for industry.

    Her doctoral research at the London School of Economics examines workplace interventions to address gender-based violence making her one of a small number of researchers globally with deep technical expertise in precisely the problem DIG is designed to solve. She holds an MSc in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a Master of Research from LSE, and a BA in International Business from Maastricht University, and conducted a visiting PhD fellowship at Cornell University. She was awarded full competitive scholarships for outstanding academic performance throughout her career.

    At DIG, Pauline leads industry engagement working with manufacturers, lead firms, and supply chain partners to assess, embed, and advance safety as a measurable standard of excellence.