Two Indian-Americans get key posts in Obama team

United States President Barack Obama on Saturday announced the appointment of two more Indian-Americans - Raj Shah and Aneesh Paul Chopra - to his key administration posts.

While Shah has been nominated as Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics in the Department of Agriculture, Chopra will be the Chief Performance Officer, Obama announced on Saturday morning in his weekly radio address.

"As Chief Technology Officer, Chopra will promote technological innovation to help the country meet its goals from job creation, to reducing health care costs, to protecting the homeland," the president said.

In his current position as Virginia's Secretary of Technology, Chopra leads the strategy to effectively leverage technology in government reform, to promote Virginia's innovation agenda and to foster technology-related economic development.

He has earlier worked as Managing Director with the Advisory Board Company, leading the firm's Financial Leadership Council and the Working Council for Health Plan Executives.

On the other hand, another Indian-American Shah is currently the Director of Agricultural Development in the Global Development Programme for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Said to be Gates Foundation's sharpest executives, Shah, 36, lives in Seattle.

In this capacity, he manages the Foundation's Agricultural Development programme -- including grant-making portfolios in science and technology, farmer productivity, market access, and policy and statistics -- with the goal of helping the world's poor lead healthy and productive lives.

Having joined the Foundation in 2001, he has served as the Foundation's Director of Strategic Opportunities and Deputy Director of Policy and Finance for Global Health.

In these roles, he helped develop and launch the Foundation's Global Development Programme and International Finance Facility for Immunisation -- an effort that raised more than USD 5 billion for child immunisation and hopes to save more than five million lives around the world.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Shah was the health care policy advisor on the Gore 2000 presidential campaign and a member of Governor Ed Rendell's transition committee on
health.

Co-founder of Health Systems Analytics and Project IMPACT for South Asian Americans, he has served as a policy aide in British Parliament and worked at World Health Organisation.

Currently, Shah serves on the boards of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the Seattle Public Library, and the Seattle Community College District. Shah earned his MD from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and Master of Science in health economics at Wharton School of Business.

He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and London School of Economics and has published articles on health policy and global development. In 2007, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.