Ashwin Naik

Ashwin Naik is a Founding Partner at consulting firm We Scale Impact and currently the Founder & Director of Vaatsalya Healthcare. While 70% of India’s population lives in semi-urban and rural areas, the majority of the healthcare facilities are in urban areas and not accessible to these families. Vaatsalya bridges this gap by building primary and secondary care hospitals in semi-urban and rural areas. Vaatsalya currently has eight hospitals in Karnataka and one in Andhra Pradesh, totaling 600 + beds, and is the largest hospital network of its kind in India. Winner of the Inaugural Porter Prize in India for value-based healthcare, Vaatsalya has been recognized as the Most Innovative Healthcare Company by VCCircle in 2014 and by Fast Company in 2013, Winner of the BiD Challenge India 2007 for the best business in development in India, LRAMP Award for Innovation 2008, Sankalp Award for Social Enterprise 2009 and Frost & Sullivan Healthcare Excellence Award 2010 for its innovative business model.

Ashwin is also a Resident Fellow at Ashoka, a pioneering network of social entrepreneurs worldwide and Chairs the National Association of Social Enterprises, India. He has been recognized as an Economic Times Leaders under 40, Young Global Leader (YGL) 2012 By World Economic Forum, Young Leader by Asia Society Asia21 in 2011, Senior Ashoka Fellow in 2010, Finalist for the India Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2010 by the Schwab Foundation, Ted India fellow for 2009. Dare Magazine India in its April 2011 edition profiled Ashwin as one of 50 inspiring Entrepreneurs of India.

Previously, he was the Vice President of Business Development and Informatics at Trieste Sciences, a clinical genomics company. Ashwin has been part of the human and mouse genome projects at Celera Genomics. He was instrumental in coordinating multidisciplinary teams to compile and analyze human and mouse genomes, leading to two publications in the journal Science. He holds three patents and has contributed a book chapter on Origin of Life.

Ashwin is a trained physician and has written and spoken about leadership, entrepreneurship, rural health, and social entrepreneurship at various forums around the world, including World Health Congress, NHS Alliance, Ashoka Future Forum, Global Philanthropy Forum, and Africa Health Summit (KPMG). He has a medical degree from Karnatak Medical College, Hubli, and a Masters’s from the University of Houston, Texas.