Vijay Krishnarayan

Vijay Krishnarayan is the Director of the Commonwealth Foundation. He has supported civil society organisations in the United Kingdom, Caribbean and the wider Commonwealth over the last 30 years. A land-use planner by training, he has a special interest in the relationship between development and the environment. Before joining the Commonwealth Foundation in 2006, he spent over a decade in the Caribbean, most notably as Managing Partner for the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), one of the region’s sustainable development think tanks. From 2006-12 he served as the Foundation’s Deputy Director. In this capacity he had oversight of the Foundation’s grants and programmes and helped build the organisation’s communications capacity. He has led the Foundation’s coordination of civil society inputs to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings since 2007. He was appointed Director in 2012 and in this capacity led the relaunch of the Foundation, which delivered a new strategic plan, organisational structure and corporate identity.