Rajeev Sadanandan, a member of the Indian Administrative Service,  was the Additional Chief Secretary in the Government of Kerala. He is an internationally acclaimed health policy and systems expert based in Kerala, India, and served as the Health Secretary of Kerala for 11 years, during which he played a transformative role in reforming the health systems in Kerala. Rajeev set up Kerala’s AIDS Control Programme, the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme, and the Programme for the Control of Non-Communicable Diseases. He commenced the digitalisation of Kerala’s health system through the E-Health programme. He designed and executed the ‘Aardram Mission,’ widely credited with improving government health systems. He led the control of the Nipah outbreak and was the Advisor to the Chief Minister of Kerala on the management of COVID-19. He was the lead consultant to develop the Regional Strategic Roadmap on Health Security and Health System Resilience for Emergencies for the World Health Organization, SEARO.

Rajeev was the founder and CEO of the Health System Transformation Platform, a think tank on health policy and systems based in New Delhi. He also worked as the CEO of India’s national social health insurance programme, in addition to holding many other positions in state and federal governments, and had a brief stint with UNAIDS. He was a Commissioner on the Lancet Global Health Commission on Financing Primary Health Care. Currently, Rajeev is a member of the Technical Advisory Panel of the Pandemic Fund set up by the World Bank and participates in the Policy Makers Forum under the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research of the World Health Organization, Geneva. He is also a member of the technical committees of many international and national research projects.