In the spotlight: Zia Shakir
Can you tell us more about your background?
I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Engineering from University of Madras, India and came to the United States to pursue a graduate program. But ended up taking a job as a Software Engineer and quickly moved to managing projects and teams. Later, I transitioned to working on an amalgam of strategy and management consulting. I attended graduate school and completed a M.S. at The University of Texas–Dallas and continued working within consulting. To gain a holistic understanding of business administration, I furthered my studies and gained an MBA from Duke University – Fuqua School of Business.
While working at Levi Strauss as a Practice Leader, I got the opportunity to work on sustainability from a people perspective in partnership with Harvard SHINE (Sustainability and Health Initiative for Netpositive Enterprise) and work alongside one of its leaders – Dr. Eileen McNeely. It was a pivotal moment in my life where global health not only piqued my interest but also gave a purpose to my career, and I decided to dedicate the rest of my career to it. To that end, I pursued an MPH from Yale University – Yale School of Public Health (YSPH).
After graduation, I took on a consulting opportunity with the Health Finance Institute as a Senior Global Health Consultant and worked on a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) project to understand the challenges in the vaccine supply chain in Africa and assess opportunities for a financially viable and operationally practical blended finance facility. I even had the poignant experience of visiting Nairobi to meet with different stakeholders to develop a comprehensive roadmap for using blended finance instruments to support the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain and explore opportunities for public-private partnerships to address the overall healthcare supply chain in Kenya.
I currently serve at Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab (HSIL) as a Senior Associate, Global Health Systems. I feel both extremely humbled and edified to work under Prof. Rifat Atun, and with an amazing team led by Dr. Che Reddy.
Why did you decide on working in global health systems and healthcare innovation?
An engineer turned management consultant, to a global health advocate, might sound inscrutable and tortuous to many. Unarguably, getting into YSPH, I had a myopic view of public health. Nevertheless, during the MPH program I got exposed to a plethora of courses including “Reforming Health Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries”, “Evidence-Based Decision-Making in Global Health” and “Health in Humanitarian Crises” which built very well on the core courses.
I realized that with my extensive experience in strategy and management, consulting, and project/program management, I am well poised to augment my transferable skills with newly gained competencies, to address global health challenges through a broader, systems-level lenses of health systems research, innovation, and translation.
Can you tell us more about your work?
During my time at HSIL, I have led a study on Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) and how Changing Diabetes in Children (CDIC) has contributed towards expanding access to equitable health services for T1D. The report articulates major opportunities to build on the existing CDIC platform to scale up access to high-value health services for T1D and contribute to advancing the goal of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) through a structured and evidenced-based process to scale up CDIC programs in India, and eventually accentuate the efforts across G-20. I am currently expounding on the study of leveraging digital health toward understanding the scale of T1D and creating innovative solutions for evaluating, maintaining, and managing T1D.
Concurrently, I am also working on a research engagement that assesses health systems performance through globally available survey data, to address cardiovascular disease (CVD) globally. The deep insights gathered from the research would translate to inform innovative interventions and policy formulation, at both governmental and public/private entities, across the G-20s nations.
What do you like most about your work and the team?
My time at the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab has been extremely rewarding and fulfilling. I get to learn from and work with global thinkers, key opinion leaders, and students across the world, who all carry the same mission of striving towards achieving Universal Healthcare Coverage (UHC) and upholding the principle that “health is a fundamental right.”
What is the toughest question you have had to face?
I do not think I can divulge a candid answer, except an oblique one, when asked who I would be rooting for during a “Yale versus Harvard” game.
