About NADAKAI
Who We Are
NADAKAI is a boutique editorial and communications firm. We work with research institutions, policy organizations, NGOs, and corporate clients whose work operates in complex, high-stakes domains.
We were built on a specific conviction: the gap between important work and effective communication is not inevitable. It is a problem that can be solved, with the right editorial skills and enough subject knowledge to understand what the work is actually trying to say.
Most of our work is editorial. We edit reports, briefs, papers, and publications across disciplines — energy policy, governance, finance, public health, development. We also support clients with strategic communications, PR, and consulting when the need arises.
We are not large. We are selective. That is a deliberate choice.
The name NADAKAI comes from the Japanese word nadakai (名高い), meaning "well known," "renowned," or "of high repute." It reflects what we believe good editorial work ultimately does: it makes ideas known — clearly, credibly, and to the audiences that matter.
What We Believe
A well-written report earns more citations, reaches more decision-makers, and represents the institution that produced it more credibly than an identical piece of research that is hard to read. Writing is a functional part of the work.
An editor who does not understand what a shadow price is, or how a policy brief is supposed to function in a legislative process, cannot edit these documents well. We hire and work with people who have genuine subject knowledge.
If a document has a structural problem, we say so. If a second draft is worse than the first, we say so. Our job is to make the work better, not to make the client feel good about it.
Our clients are busy, working under pressure, and often submitting to tight deadlines. Working with us should feel like handing something to a reliable colleague, not outsourcing to an unpredictable vendor.
How We Work
We keep our client list small enough that every project gets senior attention. We do not use subcontractors without client consent. We stay within our areas of genuine competence — if a project is outside them, we say so and, where possible, point towards someone who can help.
We invest time at the front end of every project in understanding what the document is trying to do and who it is for. An executive summary written for a ministerial briefing needs to work differently from one written for an academic journal. These distinctions matter, and getting them right is the difference between useful editing and editing that misses the point.
Our editors are trained to Chicago style and experienced in the specific conventions of policy, research, and institutional writing. We work to client style guides where they exist and can develop or review style guides as a separate service.
Background
NADAKAI was founded in 2019 by professionals with over two decades of experience in communications, high-stakes event planning, editorial publishing, and impact and policy advisory work. The team has worked with international organizations, government bodies, independent research institutes, and NGOs across multiple regions and sectors.
We have edited publications that informed national policy debates. We have restructured reports that were six months from publication and structurally broken. We have built communications strategies for organizations that had never had one.
We are based in New Delhi, India, and work with clients globally, primarily in English. We have experience with documents produced by non-native English-speaking teams and understand what kind of editorial support is most useful in that context.
We respond to every inquiry. If we are not the right fit for your project, we will tell you — and, if we can, suggest who might be.