Vinita Sethi - SVP & Chief Public Affairs Officer, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd (AHEL)
A policy and development economist, Vinita has worked in multiple roles in policy advocacy, research, and served on diverse cross-industry and government stakeholders’ forums for over 30 years. She is also an MCA approved independent director, leveraging her expertise and experiences to make a meaningful impact specifically in areas of CSR and good governance.
As Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at the Apollo Hospitals group since 2016, Vinita leads policy advocacy with government and other stakeholders. She serves on key stakeholders’ forums at industry associations and on global forums including World Economic Forum (WEF). She also leads WEF’s Deputies’ network of Edison Alliance on digital health inclusion to transform lives of one billion people by 2025.
As President of Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI- 2023-24), Vinita is deeply associated with strengthening cross-sectoral interface between government and public policy professionals. Vinita is a member of the Board of Directors of FIND India (Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, 2020-2023), and has been aligning FIND’s projects on eliminating TB with government and industry.
She has been a Governing Council member of the healthcare association- NatHealth (2019-2021), Co-Convener of Digital Inclusion and Mentorship under the ‘Empowering Greater 50’ initiative of FICCI FLO, member of Empower G20 Forum, and Former President of the Lady Sri Ram College (LSR) Alumni Association- ELSA (2017/19).
Through policy advocacy across national and multilateral forums, both at FICCI and CII (1992-2014), Vinita facilitated policy dialogues on economic reforms and engaged in consultations on economy and industry, including in areas of trade, investment, taxation, environment, sectoral policy forums in manufacturing, education, telecom, healthcare and CSR. She also launched the FICCI Confederation of MSMEs as Assistant Secretary General-FICCI (2012-14).
As Vice President (2015-2016) at Bharti Enterprises, Vinita engaged with government extensively on telecom policy, CSR, and worked on collaborative projects with global organisations including ATC, World Economic Forum (WEF), Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Qatar Foundation Endowment, GSMA, Broadband Commission, International Chamber of Commerce, CEO Forums across US, UK, and Africa. Vinita also served as nominee on Board of Bharti Foundation that imparts holistic education to under-privileged children in rural India.
Earlier, Vinita led strategic partnerships at the Spice Mobility (2010-2012), where she launched the CSR initiative- EK Soch Sandbox to support start- ups in socially impactful digital projects.
Vinita’s professional writings include published articles on subjects across education, agriculture and food security, energy, and healthcare. She has contributed articles for the UN ESCAP, WEF blogs and Niti Aayog’s strategy for New India @75.
Vinita has a master’s degree in international relations from IUJ-Japan (1987-89), a master’s degree in economics from the Delhi School of Economics (1985-87), and bachelor’s in economics from the Lady Shri Ram College (1982-85).
