Gopal Nadadur is Vice President for South Asia at The Asia Group. He offers experience across the private and public sectors, with expertise in engineering and product design, business strategies and new market entry, and industrial and trade policy. He also brings to bear hands on experience in manufacturing and supply chains across industries.
Prior to joining The Asia Group, Gopal served as a researcher and policy expert with NITI Aayog, the premier policy think tank of the Government of India, working for the CEO, Industry Vertical, and Economics & Finance Cell. He analyzed labor-intensive industrial sectors of India and measures to boost their export competitiveness. Gopal was also Research Assistant to Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and to Former U.S. Ambassador to India Rich Verma at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, focusing on topics ranging from U.S.-India relations to emerging technology policy.
Prior to these roles, Gopal worked for over eight years with the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s markets teams. He led business advisory for suppliers of vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics looking to enter new markets or expand in existing markets across Africa and Asia. He spearheaded negotiations with these suppliers to achieve affordable and yet commercially sustainable prices for low- and middle- income countries in these geographies, in order for governments and donors to be able to afford higher-volume procurements of these life-saving products to expand health access for their populations. He also led in-country and global efforts to bolster supply chains for vaccines and other healthcare commodities.
Gopal earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering (product design) from the Pennsylvania State University and a Master in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He was born and raised in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Delhi and has lived and worked in the United States for 15 years. His time away from India also included extensive work and travels in the E.U., China, and sub-Saharan Africa. He is delighted to be back in India now and is based in Delhi.