Chintan Maru

Chintan Maru is CEO of GDI Americas and Board Chair of GDI South Asia, where he leads the incubation of initiatives that place dignity, compassion, and agency at the center of social systems.

His work spans race reparations, health systems reform, and democratic renewal. He serves on the founding team and board of the Dignity Restoration Project, advancing one of the most developed reparations efforts in the United States; advises the Ogletree Reparative Bar Association, building legal infrastructure for the reparations movement; is Founder and Principal of Leapfrog to Value, expanding financing for high-quality, person-centered health systems; and co-founded Oxygen Hub, a franchise model improving access to medical oxygen across Africa.

Chintan began his career at Tower Street Prison in Jamaica, conducting ethnographic research after a public health intervention on HIV unraveled in violence when it failed to account for social and cultural realities. Working to help restart the program taught him that systems built without regard for dignity often do harm, even when intentions are good.

He is a medical doctor, trained at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; studied political theory at Duke; and was a Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow at Princeton and a Fulbright Scholar to Jamaica. 

Chintan practices capoeira angola and dance, and writes regularly about dignity, compassion, and agency — how they live within us, and how they shape the systems we inhabit.