Prioritise meaningful needs
Identify which problems are evidenced, consequential and important enough to justify intervention.
Health innovation strategy · portfolios · adoption
Choosing the right health problems. Backing the right innovations. Making them work in practice.
I connect user evidence, portfolio judgement and health-system insight to improve what gets built, funded and adopted.
15 yearsacross research, industry and innovation ecosystems
20+ projects · £2m+global digital-health work led through HITLAB
5 platforms · 60+ partnersinnovation alliances built across South Asia
Patent 466813with product-market fit across Asia-Pacific, the US and Europe
The problem
Health innovation is not short of ideas. It is short of disciplined choices.
Teams can start with a solution before the need is clear, invest before the evidence is strong, or treat adoption as somebody else’s downstream problem. The result is wasted capital, stalled pilots and innovations that do not fit the people or systems expected to use them.
My work focuses on the choices that prevent this: which needs merit action, which innovations deserve backing, and what must be in place for real-world use.
Prioritise the need. Test the investment case. Shape the route to adoption.
My speciality
One connected discipline across the innovation journey.
I work across three decisions that organisations often separate, even though weakness in any one of them can undermine the whole investment.
Strengthen portfolio choices
Test assumptions, evidence and value to improve build, fund and scale decisions.
Shape adoption strategy
Identify the actors, incentives, capabilities, partnerships and pathway changes required for use.
Selected work
Evidence across research, investment, programmes and health systems.
Current system-level work
Creating the conditions for mental-health innovations to be adopted and sustained
Lead, Innovation Environments & Infrastructure · Mental Health Catalyst · IfM Engage
Leading work on the organisational environments, infrastructure, capabilities and care pathways needed to support mental-health innovation across different settings.
- Scope
- International collaboration spanning researchers, innovators, people with lived experience, healthcare professionals, funders and policymakers.
- Expertise demonstrated
- System-level innovation strategy, cross-context analysis and adoption conditions.
Research foundation
Reducing failure risk before digital-health solutions are chosen
PhD research · University of Cambridge
Funded research identifying upstream determinants of user-centred digital-health innovation and how firms can improve need identification and early user involvement.
- Output
- Findings informing a practical, AI-supported readiness and decision tool for early-stage innovation.
- Expertise demonstrated
- Unmet-need strategy, user evidence and early innovation de-risking.
Portfolio and investment
De-risking digital-health investment and venture portfolios
HealthTech Innovation & Portfolio Consultant · Social Alpha
Advised an impact-focused venture development platform on portfolio management, helping early-stage ventures evidence value to payers and clinical partners.
- Programme contribution
- Led a venture-acceleration framework enabling a major pharmaceutical company to evaluate and accelerate digital-health innovations.
- Expertise demonstrated
- Investment de-risking, venture evidence and portfolio decision support.
Platform and programme leadership
Building a national digital-health innovation platform
Country Head, Strategy & Operations · HITLAB India
Institutionalised India strategy and operations while leading partnerships, programmes and team development across a global health-innovation portfolio.
- Scale
- 20+ global projects worth more than £2 million; five innovation platforms and 60+ strategic partners.
- Organisational result
- Increased revenue by 560%, secured more than £540,000 and reduced operating expense by over 65%.
These roles span different settings. The recurring work is the same: improving what gets attention, investment and a credible route into use.
Earlier foundations
Grounded in building, clinical adoption and frontline need.
Stanford–India Biodesign
From ethnographic need discovery to product-market fit
Led multidisciplinary teams through product development, business design, intellectual property and market strategy. Co-invented a patented preventive intervention for musculoskeletal disorders affecting clinicians.
Patent 466813 · Product-market fit across Asia-Pacific, the US and Europe
Cochlear
Patient insight linked to clinical adoption
Co-managed a £258,000 patient-insight portfolio and worked with more than 20 clinical partners to strengthen product integration and adoption.
650+ patients · Voice-of-customer research · Clinical partnerships
Health Mantra
Inclusive care designed around real operating constraints
Developed an affordable diabetes-management service for varied socioeconomic groups. The solution was integrated into Portea Medical.
£40,000+ sales growth in six months · Hospital training and adoption
Where I add value
Clarity at the decisions that shape portfolio and system outcomes.
Need and opportunity strategy
Clarify which problems merit attention, for whom and why.
Portfolio and funding strategy
Assess opportunities, challenge assumptions and make stronger build, fund and scale choices.
Programme and ecosystem design
Shape platforms, partnerships and stakeholder coalitions around a clear innovation purpose.
Adoption and system strategy
Identify the incentives, capabilities and pathway changes required for real-world use.
Ideas
Questions shaping my current work.
How funders can spot adoption risk before scale
Why user-centred innovation can still back the wrong problem
What portfolio strategy misses when implementation is treated as downstream
Current questions informing my research, teaching and strategic work.
About
A career built around the choices that determine whether health innovation creates value.
My work has moved from clinical research and biodesign to corporate health technology, venture portfolios, innovation platforms, doctoral research and system-level mental health.
The pattern is not breadth for its own sake. It is repeated responsibility for the choices that determine whether a health innovation is worth pursuing, where resources should be committed and what will enable it to work in practice.
I bring that research-practice perspective to organisations working across innovation funding, programme design, health systems and global delivery.
University of Cambridge
PhD in Digital Health Innovation
Mental Health Catalyst, IfM Engage
Lead, Innovation Environments & Infrastructure
HITLAB India
Former Country Head, Strategy & Operations
Social Alpha
Former HealthTech Innovation & Portfolio Consultant
HIMSS India
Former Co-Chair, Innovation & Start-ups Committee
Contact
Shaping a health innovation portfolio, programme or adoption strategy?
Share the decision, evidence and setting. The most relevant conversations involve need prioritisation, portfolio choices, programme design or real-world adoption.