Our Team

Ashok Malik

Ashok is a well-known news columnist and public commentator in India, with a range of interests stretching from Indian politics and political economy, to business and foreign policy. All of these, he finds, are increasingly conflating as in the new India business and economic imperatives tend to drive policy more than previously.

Ashok is a prolific writer for a slew of leading newspapers, including The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Asian Age, Pioneer, among others. He has also been published internationally by Forbes.com and YaleGlobal Online. His expertise on India has seen him contribute to the Harvard Asian Quarterly and publish a paper on new drivers of Indian foreign policy for the Lowy Institute, Sydney.

In 2011, Ashok authored the book India: Spirit of Enterprise, encapsulating the story of the growth of India’s leading private sector industries – ranging from automobiles to pharmaceuticals – and the future trajectory of the Indian economy. The government of India’s foreign and commerce (trade) ministries are distributing copies of the book worldwide, through embassies and trade missions.

Ashok specialises in an understanding of the Indian political and policy environment, and how it works. He has substantial experience in advising international investors and corporations on political and policy risks in India, and on making the appropriate strategic approach to doing business or inaugurating a project.

Shivani Gupta

Shivani is the founder and CEO of PRinINDIA, India’s leading communications and public relations firm, with biggest network that is Pan-India in its true sense. She provides strategic and business direction as well as is responsible for bringing in senior level communication counsel and deep understanding of media operations and outreach in India for varied clients.

Shivani has a diverse communications background including extensive media relations, media training, marketing, community relations, crisis and internal communications and is recognized for her social media capabilities, which is also her personal passion.

She is regularly consulted on various aspects of public relations, government relations, media engagement strategies and corporate reputation as well as risk management and mitigation aspects by leadership across diverse industry sectors.

Before launching PRinINDIA, she has led integrated strategic communications campaign for diverse corporate as an internal communication leader as well as has been part of some of the leading PR agencies including Perfect Relations. Shivani also worked with Becton Dickinson India and AuthBridge.

Shivani is a graduate from Narsee Monjee College, Mumbai, with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. She has a Post graduate diploma in marketing and communications from National Institute of Advertising.

Steven Lott

Steven is an expert in planning and executing successful communications campaigns. His areas of specialization also include issues management, event planning, stakeholder engagement, online communications and strategic marketing communications planning. Prior to joining Ward Health Strategies, he worked for two major public relations agencies, managing communications programs for a range of consumer, health and government clients, including the Ontario Ministry of Health.

Steven has worked with a variety of patient advocates, non-governmental organizations, think-tanks, academics and other health stakeholders in Canada, U.S.A., South America, Europe and Africa to promote strategic health policies. Issues of particular interest include: patient engagement in health care, access and innovation, counterfeit medicines, and the growing burden of chronic conditions.

In his current role, Steven has attended many international health events, including the UN’s World Health Assembly in Geneva, UN ECOSOC special event on philanthropy in New York, WIPO meeting on IP and public health, WHO/UNICEF/World Bank briefing on the state of the world’s vaccines and immunization, International Alliance of Patient Organizations’ Global Patients Congress in Budapest and U.S. Senate and House hearings on global health.

Aside from his professional responsibilities, Steven is a board member of the Asthma Society of Canada.

James Ward

James has extensive experience in managing successful alliance development campaigns including patient workshops in South America, Europe, Canada, and the United States.

James provides innovative web design, system architecture and technical services for a variety of clients including patient organizations, pharmaceutical companies and health provider organizations.

Since graduating the Computer Science Technology Program at Sheridan College in 2000 James has become a Zend Certified PHP Engineer (2004) and is involved in a wide variety of open-source an proprietary software development including the Drupal, Joomla, and eZPublish projects.

James is a board member of the Hamilton branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, a CNIB Hamilton fundraising committee member, and a member of the Global Health Council.