For Yash Divadkar, meaningful progress is rarely about reaching the destination quickly. It is about bringing people together, building trust and staying the course.“Many of the world’s biggest challenges require more collaboration rather than isolated action. That belief continues to motivate me every day,” says Yash Divadkar, Partnerships Lead and Health Lead at the Philanthropy Asia Alliance (PAA).

At PAA, Yash leads health initiatives and builds relationships with foundations, multilateral organisations, and corporations that are either already engaged in philanthropy or looking to enter the space. His role connects philanthropic, public, and private funders around shared priorities, helping cross-sector partners deploy collective capital more strategically for sustainable impact. 

The work calls for patience and a willingness to invest in outcomes that may take years to materialise. Yash brings the same outlook to his personal life: he enjoys experiences that push him beyond his comfort zone and values what the journey can teach him.  

He first saw Everest Base Camp from the Tibetan side, where it was accessible by road. “That didn't feel like much of an achievement,” he recalls.  So when the opportunity arose to trek to base camp from Nepal, he took it. “Before I started, it felt more like  a physical challenge. But along the way, you realise it is as much a mental challenge.”

Yash at Everest Base Camp.

The trek was harder, slower and ultimately more rewarding. It also reflects how Yash approaches his work: the destination matters, but so does how you get there. 

From Finance to Philanthropy

Yash’s career has taken him from banking into impact investing and international development.  He began his career in Singapore at a global financial institution, moved into private banking and later pursued a dual Masters in Business and International Relations in Spain. An internship with an impact investing fund in Seattle followed, before an opportunity at the World Economic Forum introduced him to the world of international development and cross-sector partnerships.

Over the next five and a half years, largely based in Geneva and working across South Asia, Yash brought public and private sector stakeholders together around shared challenges. The experience showed him what it takes to build alignment across institutions with different priorities.  

“At the Forum, I had the opportunity to understand what it takes to get public sector and private sector capital to come together and work in a much more meaningful way,” he says.

PAA offered a natural next step - and brought him closer to implementation. Beyond convening partners and shaping ideas, PAA develops collaborative programmes, mobilises philanthropic capital, and supports work on the ground. For Yash, it was an opportunity to apply his partnership-building experience to help translate shared priorities into action.  

“PAA was the most natural transition. It allowed me to add the third ‘P’ - philanthropic capital - to my experience of public and private capital.”  

The move also brought him home. Having grown up in Singapore, Yash had been considering a return when he saw the region’s philanthropic ecosystem gaining momentum.

Yash with fellow PAA team members at dinner after a day of engagements in New Delhi, India.

“I was starting to think about moving back to Singapore, and I could see so many interesting developments taking shape here,” says Yash, who joined PAA shortly after its launch in 2023.

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Making the Pieces Fit

Since its launch, PAA has grown from 80 to now over 110 members and partners. For Yash, that growth reflects a deeper shift: more funders now recognise the value of working together rather than pursuing fragmented approaches. 

PAA’s programmes bring funders from around the world together to support collaborative action in Asia, while showing how solutions developed in the region can be adapted and scaled elsewhere.

Yash with fellow PAA team members and Mr Simon Wong Wie Kuen,
Singapore’s High Commissioner to India.

One way PAA is enabling this is through its Communities initiative, which brings members and partners together around shared challenges in climate and nature, health, and education. Through these Communities, funders can combine their expertise and resources, support a portfolio of initiatives, and build on successful approaches across geographies.

“Launching the Health for Human Potential community at PAS last year was quite a feat,” Yash shares. The Community brings together organisations including the Gates Foundation, Temasek Foundation, Tanoto Foundation, the Institute of Philanthropy, Google.org, and Google DeepMind to address maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition, as well as infectious diseases in Southeast Asia. Together, they have committed to mobilising US$100 million in catalytic philanthropic funding by 2030.

“The big win is having varied actors working together,” Yash says. “That creates the conditions to tackle complex challenges at a scale no single organisation could achieve alone.”

Alongside this, the Philanthropy Asia Summit (PAS), PAA’s flagship event supported by Temasek Trust, has grown into a major platform for collaboration and exchange. Since PAA’s formal launch at PAS 2023, the Summit has expanded into a multi-day gathering for leaders across the public, private, and philanthropic sectors, with over five times as many participants as its inaugural edition.

Yash and the PAA team at Philanthropy Asia Summit 2026

Connecting for Collective Impact

While PAS is PAA’s most visible convening, its work continues throughout the year through Communities, satellite convenings and partnerships across key geographies. These platforms allow partners to exchange knowledge, develop programmes, and pursue opportunities for collective funding.  

The inaugural Tsinghua-PAA Impact Summit in Beijing is one example of how PAA is extending networks across Asia and beyond.  

PAS also creates opportunities for organisations across the Temasek Trust Collective to bring their different expertise and perspectives to a shared platform. For Yash, being part of the wider network reinforces the value of collaboration - not as an end in itself, but as a way to achieve stronger, more durable outcomes.  

Yash’s work is grounded in the belief that lasting change takes patience: bringing the right partners together, building trust and staying the course. Like the trek to Mount Everest Base Camp, the destination matters - but so does every step taken to reach it.

Yash's story is part of ‘People of Purpose’, a series spotlighting colleagues across the Temasek Trust Collective who are driving meaningful impact. Each story reflects the spirit of collective action and our shared journey toward inclusive, sustainable change.