Sonali Madia Patel is a partner in Bridgespan’s New York office. She has been at Bridgespan since 2014 and has worked primarily in the philanthropy practice on a wide range of projects varying from initiative strategy to organizational design. She worked with the Tata Trusts developing their malnutrition strategy in India as well as supporting process redesign for grantmaking. She has spent the last two years working with the Rockefeller Foundation on the design of major initiatives in youth employment, global food systems, and science as well as a global scan to help them to develop a short-list of ideas for their next “big bet”. Most recently she worked with a large global family foundation first on supporting their foundation in developing its vision, mission, and principles and then in a separate effort to foster more collaboration and innovation amongst the family members. Sonali has also worked with large NGOs as well, most notably National Geographic Society on defining its mission and vision and critical pivots for the organization to achieve its goals and more recently on executive team effectiveness.

Prior to joining The Bridgespan Group, Sonali was at Bain & Company working primarily in the healthcare practice. While at Bain her work was focused on a wide range of issues including growth strategy, organizational and process redesign, and performance improvement.

Sonali graduated from Duke University with BS in Psychology and received her MBA from The Wharton School. She currently lives in Rye, NY with her husband and three children.