Smruti has 10 years of management experience from the business sector and has been working in humanitarian and development sector for 25 years. She has worked for RCRC societies, INGOs, UN agencies and local organisations and has carried missions in over 50 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
She was a member of the Tsunami Evaluation team for Multi-Agency Thematic Evaluation: Impact of the international response on local and national capacities, and since then has been an active advocate for locally led response and accountability to affected population. She was the Head of Membership Services and Certification at HAP International (now CHS Alliance). In 2015, she lead the development of Network of Empowered Aid Response (NEAR) from idea on paper to the launch of the network at the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016.
Currently she is the Co-Director of Global Mentoring Initiative. She is involved in co-creating spaces to accompany international organisations and donors in the change processes for better partnering and collaborations, focusing on shifting power, attitudes and behaviours; keeping equity, inclusion, anti-racism and decolonisation at the centre of the discussions. She was involved in the research to develop localisation framework for the Start Network, to assess and measure their progress towards localisation. The “Seven Dimensions Framework” is now being used and has adapted by many organisations and Humanitarian Countries Teams. She is a member of IASC Thematic Expert Group on PSEAH. She is a member of the International Convening Committee of Alliance for Empowering Partnership (A4EP), a network of local and national organisations, advocating for locally led action. She accompanies and mentors many local leaders.