Our Team
The people who hold this environment.
Chisel runs on a parallel hierarchy — a structure where administration and operations are held separately from the work of education, so that educators can teach, observe, and grow children without the weight of administrative fire-fighting pulling them away from what matters most.
Every adult here holds two responsibilities: as an educator, guiding learners through concepts and academic understanding; and as a mentor, supporting the emotional and psychological ground that makes real learning possible.
We observe before we intervene. We listen before we guide.
Brinda Sundar
Founder & Academic Lead
Brinda began with one question: what kind of learning helps a child grow, not just perform?
She has worked in education since 2007 — across competitive exam coaching, alternative environments, and community-based learning. She founded Chisel in 2012. Everything since has been an extension of that founding question — and of a tension she could not stop sitting inside, every moment of her life.
Montessori training at primary, elementary, and adolescent levels. Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Cambridge International Diploma in Teaching and Learning. An ongoing MA in Education at the University of Birmingham, alongside IBEC and PGDEI.
She designs the curriculum, maps it carefully against mainstream board requirements, trains every educator, and remains the academic and pedagogical anchor of this environment.
Muruga Sundaram believed in Chisel before it had proof to offer. As co-founder, he has invested in this environment not as a commercial venture but as a service to the community — with faith in what education built on genuine care can become. He holds the larger vision of Chisel’s growth and sustainability, ensuring that the work Brinda and the team do every day has the ground beneath it to continue.
Muruga Sundaram
Co-Founder & Correspondent
Anto Jerry
Chief Executive Officer
Anto came to Chisel as a parent. He stayed because the environment became something he wanted to help build. A psychologist and counsellor with specific training in adolescent development (AMI), Anto holds the structure and systems that allow educators to work freely, without the weight of administration falling into the classroom. He works directly with older learners on direction, creativity, and film-based learning.
Preetha has grown with Chisel from educator to coordinator to Principal — and that trajectory matters. She has not arrived at leadership from outside. She has lived every stage of this environment from within it.
Trained in Economics, Education, and Montessori at both primary and elementary levels, her leadership is grounded in long practice, calm observation, and a deep alignment with what Chisel is trying to do. She works closely with educators across all three campuses to ensure that what happens in classrooms remains true to the philosophy and rigorous in its academic expectations.
preetha
Principal
Ramya
Elementary Coordinator
Ramya holds the elementary environment — the bridge between teachers, children, parents, and the psychologists who work across the school. In a parallel hierarchy where educators are freed to teach, Ramya carries the curriculum thread — watching how it needs to be modified for each child, bringing high-order reflections into planning conversations, and ensuring that what a child needs is actually what they receive.
She brings developmental understanding, psychology, and literature into the elementary years — and she holds the balance between challenge and care with a steadiness that children feel even when they cannot name it.
Dhivya’s path into this work was shaped by watching her own child grow within Chisel. That personal knowledge — of what it is to trust a place with your child, of what transformation in a young child actually looks like from the inside — is something she carries into every interaction with children and parents.
As Primary Coordinator, she holds the continuum of the curriculum in the early years — the bridge between what a child is today and what they are becoming. Her presence ensures that the foundation years are not just warm but genuinely developmental — that every child’s individual rhythm is seen and respected.
Dhivya
Primary Coordinator
Every adult at Chisel holds two responsibilities — as an educator guiding academic understanding, and as a mentor supporting the emotional and developmental ground that makes real learning possible. Alongside the educators, three psychologists work across all campuses — not from offices, but within classrooms, observing, reflecting, and helping build a deeper understanding of each child over the years.
Educators at Chisel are personally chosen and mentored by Brinda, not only for academic understanding, but for their ability to observe deeply, listen with attention, and guide with thoughtfulness. We look for adults who know when to step in, when to step back, and how to hold both care and challenge in balance as children grow.