About

Aasha Pai is a freelance consultant in global health/development and capacity building for social purpose organizations. Aasha has over 20 years of experience working for non-profit organizations and social enterprises with a focus on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and women?s empowerment. She started working on public health issues as a program manager in Kenya for International Rescue Committee covering Southern Sudan and Somalia in the 1990s.

She has spent a large part of her career working for Marie Stopes International. As Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, she provided direct strategic support to MSI?s country programs leading to significant expansion and improvements in quality, access, and sustainability. Aasha was heavily involved in MSI?s scale up of social franchising and the launch of new health services. She was instrumental in securing a number of significant bilateral and multilateral grants as part of sector-wide health approaches in Africa, as well as leading successful proposals for MSI globally. She also led the relationship and engagement with a large private foundation, providing oversight of a US$140 million portfolio of health projects across MSI. Aasha has worked closely with country programs in Africa and Asia, strengthening the technical rigor of their operations and client care.

Aasha?s areas of expertise are strategy; organizational development; mentoring and coaching senior leaders; and project design, monitoring and evaluation. She is currently Board Director and Chair of the Program Committee for EMpower, the Emerging Markets Foundation which focuses on improving the lives of young people in education, health, and livelihoods.