ThinkLink Consulting

01About

An independent research and advisory firm.

ThinkLink Consulting LLP was set up on a simple premise: decisions about public money and social programmes should rest on evidence that has been collected carefully and reported honestly — including when the findings are inconvenient.

We work across the full arc of a programme. We help design the logic before it starts, track it while it runs, and evaluate it once results are in. Our teams pair survey methodology and statistics with real field experience, so the numbers in our reports are numbers we have watched being collected.

We are deliberately small and senior. The people who scope a study are the people who write its conclusions, and clients deal with them directly rather than through a hand-off.

Principle 01

Independence first

We are not paid to confirm what a client hopes to hear. Findings are reported as the data supports them, and our methods stay the same whoever commissions the work.

Principle 02

Methods you can audit

Sampling frames, instruments and analysis plans are documented and shared. Another team should be able to pick up our files and reach the same result.

Principle 03

Findings people can act on

A report that is never opened has failed. Every engagement ends with a short decision brief and a working session on what changes next.

02What we do

Three practice areas, one evidence standard.

Most of our engagements draw on more than one of these. A CSR impact assessment needs field data collection; an evaluation needs a reporting pipeline the client can maintain after we leave.

01

Monitoring & Evaluation

Independent evaluation and monitoring systems for programmes in the public and development sectors, built to recognised international standards.

Theory of change and results frameworks
Baseline, midline and endline studies
Impact evaluation — randomised, quasi-experimental and contribution analysis
Process, performance and thematic evaluation against OECD-DAC criteria
M&E system design, indicator sets and MIS specification
Third-party monitoring and concurrent evaluation
Capacity building for in-house M&E teams

02

Research & Data Analytics

Primary and secondary research at scale, from instrument design through to the dashboard your team uses every week.

Survey design, sampling strategy and power calculations
Large-scale quantitative data collection (CAPI, CATI, web)
Qualitative research — in-depth interviews, focus groups, case studies
Statistical analysis, econometrics and geospatial analysis
Dashboards, data visualisation and reporting pipelines
Evidence reviews, landscape studies and market assessments
Data quality audits and back-check protocols

03

CSR, ESG & Sustainability

Advisory and assessment for companies that have to account for their social and environmental performance — to regulators, investors and their own boards.

CSR strategy, programme design and implementing-partner due diligence
Statutory CSR impact assessment under the Companies Act
Social return on investment (SROI) and social impact assessment
ESG reporting and BRSR readiness support
Sustainability, climate-risk and environmental advisory
Stakeholder consultation and materiality assessment
Annual CSR reporting and disclosure review

03How we work

A study is only as good as the decisions it changes.

Every engagement follows the same five stages. The sequence matters: skipping design to get into the field early is the single most common reason an evaluation cannot answer the question it was commissioned to answer.

01

Scope

We start from the decision in front of you and what will be done differently once findings arrive. That defines the questions — not the other way round.

02

Design

Sampling frame, power calculations, instruments, ethics clearance and a written analysis plan, all agreed before a single response is collected.

03

Collect

Trained enumerators, digital instruments with built-in validation, supervisor back-checks and spot audits on a fixed share of every interview batch.

04

Analyse

Analysis follows the pre-agreed plan. Limitations are stated plainly. Where the data cannot support a claim, we say so rather than soften it.

05

Report & act

A short brief for decision-makers, a full technical report for reviewers, and a working session that turns findings into a next set of actions.

OECD-DAC evaluation criteria

Relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability — applied explicitly, criterion by criterion.

UNEG norms and standards

Independence, impartiality, credibility and utility govern how evaluations are commissioned, staffed and reported.

Ethics and consent

Informed consent, protection of vulnerable respondents, anonymisation and secure handling of personal data on every study.

Reproducible analysis

Cleaning and analysis scripts are versioned and archived with the dataset, so any result in a report can be re-run.

04In the field

Evidence begins in the field.

Photographs from our own data collection, supervision visits and field research — the part of an evaluation that decides whether the numbers in the report mean anything.

Community consultation with residents — Savaroli, Maharashtra, March 2026.

Group discussion during field work — Savaroli, Maharashtra.

Interview during data collection — Savaroli, Maharashtra.

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05Sectors

Where our work is concentrated.

Sector knowledge is not decoration. It decides whether an instrument asks the right question and whether an evaluator recognises an implausible number when it appears in the data.

Health & NutritionEducation & SkillingLivelihoods & Financial InclusionWater, Sanitation & HygieneClimate, Energy & EnvironmentGender & Social InclusionRural Development & GovernanceCorporate CSR

06Leadership

The founding directors.

ThinkLink is led by its founders, who stay on every engagement from scoping through to the final presentation.

Manish Kumar Prasad

Founding Director

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Manish is an economist whose work sits where public finance, governance and human development meet. At the International Growth Centre (LSE), he worked with the Government of Bihar to build the state's monitoring and evaluation ecosystem — setting research agendas, commissioning policy studies and briefing decision-makers on what the evidence showed. Earlier, at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy under the Ministry of Finance, he worked on UNICEF's study of public finance and governance bottlenecks in Madhya Pradesh, interviewing district administrations on fund-flow and building a district-level governance index that linked expenditure to human development outcomes. He has also designed a cash-transfer scheme for the Madhya Pradesh government aimed at improving access to healthcare. His research has appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly, the ICAI journal and Yojana. He holds a PhD in Economics from IIM Kozhikode, an M.A. in Development Economics from South Asian University and a B.Sc. (Hons) in Economics from the University of Calcutta, and has cleared UGC-NET in Economics.

Public financeMonitoring & evaluationGovernance & development

Ritesh Kumar

Founding Director

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Ritesh is an atmospheric scientist working on aerosols, black carbon and climate — the environmental side of ThinkLink's practice. He is a Ministry of Earth Sciences research fellow at the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research in Goa, where his doctoral work examines the physical and optical properties of aerosols over the Arctic and what they mean for the climate. He has served on four polar and oceanographic expeditions — two Indian Arctic expeditions to Norway, the 12th Indian Scientific Expedition to the Southern Ocean, and a Greenland Sea voyage from Iceland to the Denmark Strait. Earlier work covered soil conservation and eco-rehabilitation of degraded coal-mine sites in Jharkhand, and water and air quality analysis at mining sites. His research on black carbon in the Arctic is published in Atmospheric Environment. He works in Python and MATLAB with ArcGIS, HYSPLIT and FLEXPART, holds an M.Sc. in Environmental Science from Banaras Hindu University and a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from the Central University of Jharkhand, and has qualified UGC-NET and ICAR-NET.

Climate & environmentGeospatial & modellingEnvironmental data

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