Lakshmi Iyer has a 14-year track record of driving social impact strategies for multinational corporations and foundations. She has helped leading companies like Intuit, Truist, and Toyota develop business strategies to drive social impact, design corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies, and nurture authentic community partnerships.
As a managing director at FSG, Lakshmi works with C-suite leaders, cross-functional-executives, and philanthropic leaders to create inclusive, equitable, and sustainable outcomes. She brings broad industry experience having worked with companies in technology, financial services, oil and gas, and retail across Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Lakshmi brings deep social sector experience in racial equity, gender equity and menstrual health, workforce development, financial inclusion, and sustainability/ESG. She was instrumental in leading the research on how companies can advance racial equity and in establishing a partnership with PolicyLink and Just Capital, leading to the Corporate Racial Equity Alliance.
Lakshmi is a leading member of FSG’s corporate work. In addition to the publications listed below, she is an avid speaker on corporate purpose, shared value, CSR, and corporate racial equity.
Before FSG
Lakshmi is a boomerang FSGer. She was a core member of FSG’s consulting team from 2012 – 2021 and rejoined FSG in 2023 as a managing director. Between 2021 – 2023, Lakshmi spent two years at Salesforce as the director for strategy and business operations for Salesforce.org, a shared value business unit that sold Salesforce products at a discount to nonprofits and educational institutions. At Salesforce, she led the annual strategic planning process with cross-functional business leaders, helped establish a rhythm of the business model, and program managed one of the largest technical product platform transformations. Early in her career, Lakshmi managed CSR for the Mahindra Group, an Indian multinational company where she implemented community development projects in education, health, and environment across the country, and managed a successful employee engagement program for 40,000 employees. She also has experience working for nonprofits—both executing programs and fundraising.
Education
- Master in Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)
- Master in Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai, India)
- Bachelors in Management, University of Mumbai (Mumbai, India)
Affiliations
- Net Impact
Languages
- Hindi
- Tamil
- Marathi
On Working at FSG
Very few jobs in the world allow you to be ambitious every single day. I am thrilled to be back at FSG because it enables me to do just that. Every day, I have the opportunity to partner with our clients, teams, and experts in the field to collectively think about how businesses and philanthropy can use their products, services, and resources to address systemic inequities and create lasting change.
The other reason I am excited to return is our people. Every day, I look forward to learning, unlearning, growing with my teams, and building a culture where our people are thriving with intellectually and emotionally fulfilling work and a sense of camaraderie.”
