Swapan Kumar Guha is a Co-Founder of Rupantar and a development activist whose career, spanning since 1990, has been built on the conviction that culture and communication are central to social change. As Executive Director, he provides strategic leadership across the organization’s development portfolio, with a long-standing focus on human rights, women’s empowerment, gender justice, environmental conservation, including biodiversity conservation of the Sundarbans, and the strengthening of local governance and decentralization in Bangladesh.

A theatre activist since 1976, Swapan has worked with leading theatre organizations across Khulna and co-founded Rupantar Institute of Folk Theatre (RIFT), now recognized as the largest folk theatre institute in Asia. He is a joint innovator of the revival of traditional Bengali folk song and folk culture, particularly Pot Song, a heritage art form he has helped adapt into a powerful tool for grassroots communication and social mobilization.

His expertise in Development Communication (DevCom) draws directly from this cultural grounding, using theatre, folk song, and participatory cultural forms to carry messages on rights, governance, and environmental stewardship into coastal and rural communities in ways that conventional communication cannot reach. He has built this expertise through specialized training in development theatre and theatre management, and through international study and advocacy programmes focused on participatory strategic planning and local governance reform.

He completed an international training course on Fiscal Decentralization and Local Government Financial Management at Duke University, USA, and holds a graduate degree in Arts.