Madhav began his career at Nestlé, where he spent two decades in health & nutrition-focused commercial roles, followed by global and business-leadership roles at Pfizer and Abbott Nutrition. He moved to global public health in 2020 where he established and led India Health Fund - a catalytic fund focused on de-risking the development & scale-up of science & technology-led innovation from the private sector to address existing and emerging public health challenges in India and other LMICs at Tata Trusts, India’s oldest and largest philanthropic foundation. As the first philanthropic initiative from the Global South focused on the application of frontier technologies to address public health issues in LMICs and enabling their transition from lab to patient, India Health Fund under Madhav’s leadership backed the development and rollout of world-first diagnostics, AI-based tools and surveillance solutions for TB, vector borne diseases, AMR. At India Health Fund, Madhav led the development of the first Asia-led funding consortium to fund locally-led innovations addressing climate-related health risks in Asia and a similar funder-consortium focused on technology innovation from India for women’s health needs in LMICs.
Madhav is a strong supporter of building collaboration across sectors and has written and spoken extensively about philanthropy's role as a catalyst in development finance, including a recent contribution to the Observer Research Foundation's publication No Country for Aid Alone.
Madhav has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Delhi University and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.