Vijaya Pastala ’89

Vijaya Pastala ’89 is a social entrepreneur with a passion in developing community based approaches that use the power of market forces to improve farming livelihoods. She is the founder of Under The Mango Tree, an innovative and award-winning hybrid, social enterprise that supports rural farming households in India earn incomes & increase crop productivity through community-based indigenous beekeeping.

Vijaya founded Under The Mango Tree in 2009, to address a challenge she’d been continuously confronted with – addressing India’s declining agricultural productivity and the urgent need to increase rural incomes. Since inception, Under The Mango Tree has impacted over 21,000 lives, improving rural incomes by over 30%.

Vijaya received her Bachelor’s in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College and then went on to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a Masters in Regional planning.