Sylvana Q. Sinha is Chair of the Board at Praava Health, which she founded in 2014 and led as CEO for nearly 11 years. Sinha is widely recognized for her expertise in creating capital-efficient companies that unlock new economic potential where it’s needed most. Under her leadership, Praava Health became... Read more
Sylvana Q. Sinha is Chair of the Board at Praava Health, which she founded in 2014 and led as CEO for nearly 11 years. Sinha is widely recognized for her expertise in creating capital-efficient companies that unlock new economic potential where it’s needed most.
Under her leadership, Praava Health became one of the fastest-growing fully integrated healthcare platforms in emerging markets — serving nearly a million patients in Bangladesh to date. Sinha bootstrapped the company entirely through strategic angel investors, and stayed true to its founding vision: to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care by integrating world-class diagnostics, in-person care, pharmacy, and digital tools such as telemedicine and chronic disease management.
A Columbia Law and Harvard trained lawyer and international development expert, her work spanned senior roles at blue chip firms and public institutions such as Lovells, Weil Gotshal, BCG, PwC, the UN, and the World Bank. She also acted as foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Sinha’s work bridged advanced capital markets and frontier economies, cultivating a rare insight into how to unlock untapped consumer demand in emerging markets. A family emergency in 2011 revealed the profound limitations of Bangladesh’s healthcare system, inspiring her to move there and build Praava Health.
Since opening its doors in 2018, Praava has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, a Fast Company World Changing Idea, and a WEF Global Innovator, and has been studied in case research by Harvard and Columbia Business Schools as well as the Gates Foundation. In founding Praava, Sinha not only introduced a new model of care to Bangladesh — she also sparked a new consumer health ecosystem that’s now seen as a blueprint for delivering accessible, affordable, high-quality healthcare to the rising middle class across emerging markets.
Sinha is a regular columnist for Forbes and has written for the Harvard Business Review, Council on Foreign Relations, and CNBC, among others. She holds degrees from Wellesley College, Columbia Law School, and Harvard Kennedy School, and is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She currently serves on the WEF’s UHC2030 Private Sector Constituency, sits on the board of PATH.org, and mentors at Harvard Innovation Labs and Columbia Business School.