Steering Committee
Dr. Alexander Thomas
Dr. Arun K Aggarwal
Professor Sanjay Zodpey
Dr. Lallu Joseph
Professor Dileep Mavalankar
Captain Ajitha Nair
Mr. Nick Thorp
Mr. Chandan Khanna
Dr. Karan Thakur
Dr. Raj Shankar Ghosh
Dr. Alexander Thomas
Chair – Health & Environment Leadership Platform (H.E.L.P.), PHFI
He is the Founder & Patron of Association of Healthcare Providers India [AHPI], Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations [CAHO] & Association of National Board Accredited Institutions [ANBAI].
Dr. Thomas is the member, committee constituted to include climate change, air pollution & heat wave and their impact on health in the teaching syllabus of UG and PG courses by the NCDC, MOHFW, and GOI, 2023. He has also edited a book titled ‘Climate Change and the Health Sector; Healing the World’, India’s first publication on the subject, which is made available to all on open access. He is the Chairman of the SDG3 Group (only non-IAS person) to Ensure Healthy Lives and Promote Well-Being, an initiative by the Government of Karnataka; Vice President of The SDGs Leadership Council Subcommittee on Health and Climate Change an Economic Times Edge Initiative; Member – Health Insurance Consultative Committee, IRDAI.
Chairperson of the Technical Committee on Grading of NABH Accredited Healthcare Organizations, QCI. Member-Secretary of the Karnataka Public Health Task Force of the Karnataka Jnana Aayoga, to draw up a comprehensive State Public Health Policy (2017); Chairman, Healthcare Sector Skill Council [HSSC]. Karnataka. He is also the Founder Member of Vayah Vikas.
Professor Sanjay Zodpey
Professor Sanjay Zodpey is the President, Public Health Foundation of India. He has served as Vice President – Academics, Public Health Foundation of India and led the Indian Institute of Public Health, Delhi as its Founding Director. He has served as Director of Indian Institutes of Public Health at Gandhinagar and Bhubaneswar. He has also served as Professor at Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Faculty in Clinical Epidemiology Unit and Vice Dean at Government Medical College, Nagpur, India.
He is a trained public health professional with multidisciplinary qualifications. He has acquired MD (Community Medicine), PhD and post-graduate qualifications in Sociology, Public Administration, and Economics. He was conferred ‘Doctor of Science (DSc) (Honoris Causa)’ by DMIMS Deemed to be University, Wardha for long-standing contribution to medical science and public health. He has been recently conferred ‘Doctor of Medicine (honoris causa) by The University of Sydney, Australia in recognition of his eminent contributions to public health in India, the region, and the world.
He was the National President of Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine for two consecutive terms. He is the recipient of Public Health Education Leadership Award for significant contributions in promoting public health education in the WHO’s South-East Asia Region.
Professor Dileep Mavalankar
Mr. Nick Thorp
Mr. Nick Thorp joined Health Care Without Harm in April of 2013 and serves as the Network Director for Global Green and Healthy Hospitals (GGHH). He has over 15 years of experience working with a variety of NGOs conducting toxicological research and developing innovative and interactive tools to advance education and public engagement around issues related to community and environmental health.
Nick holds a dual degree from the University of Oregon in International Environmental Studies and French. He is based in Oregon in the United States.
Dr. Karan Thakur
Dr. Karan Thakur is the Group Sustainability Lead & Vice President – Public Affairs for the Apollo Hospitals Group. He is a seasoned healthcare administrator with wide experience in the field of health policy, hospital operations, projects, health communications, and healthcare sustainability & ESG.
He is an alumnus of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and National Law University, New Delhi. He was the 2022 Global Fellow from India for the Eisenhower Fellowships. He is the Chair of the CAHO Program on Sustainability (CAPS), Member – Steering Committee of the Health & Environment Leadership Platform (PHFI), Member – Healthcare Committee of ASSOCHAM, and Member – FICCI ESG Taskforce.
Dr. Arun K Aggarwal
Dr. Arun K. Aggarwal is the Professor & head of the Department of Community Medicine & School of Public Health at PGIMER Chandigarh. He did WHO fellowship on Health Care Financing from Bangkok, Thailand, and Australian Leadership Award Fellowship on HIV, at Sydney. He is on the governing board and member of many national and state level bodies. He is trainer for Integrated Training on Neonatal and Childhood Illnesses (IMNCI) at and Child Death Reviews (CDR) and has operationalized CDR in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, New Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state. He conducts National Workshops on Health Systems Strengthening every year. He is founder President of an association “Association for Health Systems Analysis and Strengthening” https://www.ahsas-pgichd.org/ and founder Chief Editor of online international journal “International Journal of Health Systems and Implementation Research” https://ijhsir.online/
Dr. Lallu Joseph
Dr. Lallu Joseph is the Quality Manager and Associate General Superintendent of Christian Medical College Vellore, the largest hospital in the country accredited by NABH. Prior to joining healthcare, she was vice president of a software company and was a teaching assistant at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. A Mechanical Engineer by profession, she went on to complete her masters and doctorate in business administration, Diploma in CQI from the Canadian Healthcare Administration and Executive General Management from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore.
A passionate teacher, trainer and ISQua Expert, she involved in training quality implementation across the country through NABH, CAHO, AHPI and hospital administration programs. Principal assessor of NABH and National Secretary General of the CAHO, Board member of ASQua, NABH and member of working group of ISO-TC-304 Healthcare Quality Management Standards. Many book chapters and publications to her credit and was part of developing the entry level guidelines of NABH standards, technical advisor for NIMHANS accreditation and has developed about 40 training programs of CAHO. The best outgoing student of VIT Business School (2000), won many awards: young quality achiever award (2016), Dr.M.S.Ashraf Award Indian Medical Association (2018), BMJ Southeast Asian Award (2017) and the International Medal for the Asia Pacific Region by the Australian Council (2021).
Captain Ajitha Nair
Captain Ajitha Nair is a Nursing and Management professional with 31 years of varied experience in healthcare. Alumnus of Armed Forces Medical College Pune, Christian Medical College Vellore, and IIM Kozhikode; Ajitha has clinical, educational and managerial experience in Armed Forces and top rated corporate and charitable hospitals like Fortis, Aster, Ruby Hall Clinic, Meitra Hospital, KIMSHEALTH etc. Currently she is pursuing her entrepreneurial flair as Managing Director of Healbiz Healthcare which provides hands on consultancy services in hospital operations focusing on sustainability through capacity building, process reengineering, coaching and handholding.
Ajitha has implemented cost effective and sustainable strategies in hospital operations, patient management and maintaining efficient workforce at hospitals. Ajitha has hands on experience in JCI and NABH accreditations and has been NABH Principal Assessor, Faculty and Committee member. Currently she is the National President of the Association of Nurse Executives India and Executive Committee member of Health and Environment Leadership Platform.
Mr. Chandan Khanna
Chandan has more than 12 years of experience working with leading organizations in South Asia. He has been part of key studies like the economic valuation of tiger reserves in India, aimed at highlighting the conservational value of native ecosystems.
Chandan has a professional background in environment and climate change, and holds a Masters in Forest Management from Indian Institute of Forest Management Bhopal. At Health Care Without Harm, Chandan oversees the implementation of the India programs.
Dr. Raj Shankar Ghosh
Convenor – Health & Environment Leadership Platform (H.E.L.P.), PHFI
Dr. Raj Shankar Ghosh is a physician with training from national and international academic institutions in public health policies, planning, and program delivery. His work has been primarily on health systems, management of infectious diseases and in One Health recently. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Ghosh has been involved in a wide range of public health activities from planning and implementation of public health programs at a grassroots level to advocating for effective policy decisions at National and regional levels on infectious diseases, vaccines, and drugs.
He is currently overseeing the work of the Centre for Environmental Health at PHFI. This includes work around research, evidence generation, advocacy, capacity building and providing technical assistance for sustainable climate resilient health systems.