Nayantara is a trilingual storyteller, a first-generation Bengali immigrant, a racial and gender justice educator and a narrative and cultural strategist. She believes that storytelling and deep listening practices can bridge across time, geography and colorlines to create conditions for social transformation. 

Nayantara has 15 years of experience in narrative and cultural strategies, political education and training for racial justice, and capacity-building in the arts and culture, philanthropy and social justice sectors. She previously led the Narrative and Cultural Strategies program at Race Forward, where she created Innovation Labs for racial and cultural justice. She has a background in oral history, artistic curation and production, community engagement, racial equity facilitation and training, and organizational change strategies.

As the Director of Programs and Cultural Strategies, Nayantara supports Real Food Real Stories in advancing programs that use story, narrative, media, arts and cultural strategies to deeply transform inequitable and failing food systems. She aims to build bridges for healing and power for low-income immigrants and women of color in all her work, and believes that in the act of crossing, we are transformed.