South Delhi, Delhi, India
Ruchika is a public health professional with more than two decades of diverse experience in the field of reproductive, maternal, child health and nutrition programming, policy and clinical research, strategy formulation, building alliances and teams, product formulation, regulatory affairs and behaviour change communications. Ruchika is the Nutrition Lead at the Gates Foundation, India Country Office, driving nutrition strategy alignment with government priorities and SDG commitments. She focuses on scaling proven interventions, strengthening health and data systems, and fostering multi-sectoral partnerships to build local capacity and enable South-South knowledge exchange. She also supports projects in the region. In her last assignment with Vitamin Angels as Vice President- Nutrition, her role envisaged building partnerships to ensure equitable access to evidence-based nutrition interventions in hard-to-reach and to underserved populations. Prior to joining VA, Ruchika led the maternal, new-born and child health and nutrition (MNCHN) portfolio at PATH supporting its strategies and projects which promote targeted interventions aimed at improving the health and nutrition of populations at risk through a range of activities. These include support to strengthening in-country health and nutrition systems, food systems and social protection systems, policy and legislation, developing and implementing sustainable strategies, implementation research and promoting innovations for better quality systems. As part of her work, she also supported the ASEAN Region. She has been part of several Government Advisory committees and Indian and International coalitions working on RMNCHN policy, programming and system strengthening and has several publications to her credit. She previously worked with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) working towards mobilizing innovative nutrition investments to scale up both market-based approaches and public health delivery in India and Bangladesh. Prior to that, she worked with the food industry for several years in Research and Development and Marketing divisions responsible for India and Srilanka markets and with AIIMS and Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India.
Responsibilities Establish sustainable large-scale programs that rely on proven strategies to reduce malnutrition at scale through open market and public channels. - Develop QA/ QC protocol and monitoring framework for the projects. - Develop social marketing and advocacy strategy to raise public and key stakeholder’s awareness around health and nutrition and oversee its implementation. Support the development and implementation of a Strategic Guidance (five yearly) and annual Plan in support of and in alignment with regional and global strategies and priorities. Work on resource mobilization project designed to build awareness, funding and political support on key public health problems. - Identify relevant donor trends and analyze donor behavior to maximize donor development process. - Undertake detailed data collection and analysis on a range of internal and external information related to Resource Mobilization function; - Develop pipeline projects for raising resources Interagency Coordination- Provide technical leadership to Health & Nutrition programs, ensuring close coordination with policy makers, regulatory authorities, Industry bodies, Academia at the centre and state level to create an enabling environment for proven interventions. Support research studies pertaining to supply and the demand dynamics of the fortifiable vehicles and generate evidence on the proven interventions. Support Agriculture Nutrition projects in the States. Ensure dissemination of best practices/ models within the organization and external stakeholders.
Responsibilities Been part of the GAIN India Strategy development team for the years 2012-2017. Part of the resource mobilization team- Undertake detailed data collection and analysis on a range of internal and external information related to Resource Mobilization function; Liase with bilateral/ multilaterals and big corporates to explore funding opportunities. Facilitate active engagement and partnership with Government, political leadership, Industry bodies, Academia, key opinion leaders to enhance GAIN’s credibility and influence changes to policy and practice in the area of Health & Nutrition. Assist in planning annual external engagement strategy. Strengthen the Business Alliance in India and Bangladesh with the aim to increase the access of healthier products in the markets for the base of the pyramid. Advise, guide and support the local food companies in Bangladesh and India in developing effective Nutrition technical approaches in alignment with the regional and global best practices. Support communication on website development/ project updates/ regional updates and GAIN communication package Serve as an interface between various program streams in order to develop innovative business models and case studies on best practices. Under NIDDCP, support Salt Department in organising sensitisation workshop for the Salt Merchant Association in various states Advocate nutrition to be part of the Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART) with NACO
My role demanded substantial contribution to the development of new product in the infant, child and maternal nutrition category and its medical marketing strategy and program. I played a lead role in designing of product concept, claims and medical marketing package as per the regulatory guidelines within agreed time & resources.