The CEO and Founder of Praava Health on Reimagining Care in an Emerging Market

Although the author’s grandfather founded the oldest pharmaceutical company in Bangladesh, she never expected to follow in his footsteps. Raised in Roanoke, Virginia, she studied international development and law before working first as a corporate lawyer and then in the Obama administration. But when her mother fell seriously ill during a family wedding in Bangladesh—and Sinha discovered how difficult it was to get access to quality health care in that country even for well-off, well-connected families—she found a new mission. She developed a business plan for a state-of-the-art, full-service primary-care facility in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital city, and moved there—where she’d never lived before—to launch it. She focused on hiring a great team and building a culture around the distinctive service they would offer. Five years later, Praava Health has served 600,000 patients, is nearly cash-flow positive, and continues to grow.