Team members

Click/tap member for biography

• 
  Mohammed Saleem
  Country Manager
• 
  Retu Singh
  Project Consultant
• 
  Vinita Singh
  Independant Consultant

Mohammed Saleem



Country Manager

Saleem is an experienced social researcher and worker interviewer, and has worked across India and the Middle East. With more than ten years’ factory improvement experience, he specialises in understanding workers’ needs and improving worker livelihoods. He has interviewed thousands of workers in industries including apparel, hand embroidery, medical instruments, construction, metalware, pharmaceuticals, mineral extraction, mining and printing. He also takes a lead role in raising factories’ ethical standards, resolving labour issues, auditing and training workers, supervisors and managers. He has previously researched daily life in the slums of Delhi and helped to design a survey to measure poverty levels and access to finance for migrant workers in India.

Retu Singh



Project Consultant

Retu is an experienced labour lawyer, social researcher and trainer, and has conducted thousands of worker interviews. With an in-depth understanding of labour issues, she has partnered with multiple stakeholders on projects spanning worker empowerment, migrant labour, women’s welfare, sexual harassment and women’s rights in the workplace. She holds a post-graduate degree in Political Science and Law.

Vinita Singh



Independant Consultant

Vinita Singh is an independent consultant based in Gurgaon, India. Her main areas of expertise are livelihoods and ethical trade.

She has worked on a variety of issues in the area of trade and development as former Director of International Resources for Fairer Trade and as Coordinator of ETI’s Homeworker project in India. She has a Masters degree in business management and in social policy.

Vinita has focused much of her efforts in looking at how ethical trade can positively contribute to the livelihoods and lives of workers, in the formal and informal sector. She has worked with several UK retailers notably B&Q, Coop, Sainsburys, John Lewis, Boots, Traidcraft, on understanding the involvement of the informal sector workers in their supply chains and developing initiatives in improving of the livelihoods of these workers. This has been in several product areas like rice, nuts, coir, carpets, brassware, garments, jewellery and crafts. For example, with B&Q, she worked on understanding the supply chain related to coir mats that they sourced from Kerala in India. She specifically examined the issues of weavers, spinners, beaters and retters – all informal sector workers closely involved in coir mat production. She then developed, together with the coir-mat suppliers and local NGOs, grassroots Self-help Groups for addressing the credit needs of these workers. Recently, with the ETI, she facilitated a multi-stakeholder group of exporters, brands, NGOs and trade unions in India to develop and action the ETI guidelines for homeworkers. This group is now an independent organisation dedicated to improving the conditions of homeworkers in India.

Vinita continues to work with passion and perseverance to harness the power of trade for better lives for the most vulnerable workers.