Amit Bhagwat

Amit Bhagwat came to live in Europe in 2001, being what the Americans call Outstanding Immigrant and the British call a Very Highly Skilled Migrant – able to prove ~twice the points needed to qualify in the top tier of the British points-based immigration system. Amit considers himself a World Citizen – carefully selecting the work he does where it has value for the wider world – either directly or through developing exemplars and sharing learning. Amit grew up in a cosmopolitan multi-cultural environment meeting perhaps fifth of culturally diverse humanity in his formative years and has worked on meeting most of the rest of world diversity since. Since becoming permanently resident in Europe in the mid-2000s, Amit has led a diverse portfolio where he gives over half his time freely to a range of worthy causes, judging them by their world value and his ability to make a positive difference.

Working across multiple concurrent roles, Amit has accumulated over five decades of cumulative board/governance background, including multiple Chair, Treasurer, Audit Chair/Member and Senior Independent Board Member roles, working across all 3 sectors and in both non-executive (about three fourth of board background) & executive roles. He brings a similarly strong portfolio in roles holding public bodies to account and working to maximise public interest, traction and value. Amit also brings a rich committees portfolio – Quality-Accreditations, Strategy, Finance-Growth-Performance-Development-Business Management, Audit-Risk, OD-HR, Appointments, Remuneration, Health & Safety, Equality & Diversity, Grants, Scientific Advice, Ethics. Amit has, parallelly, served in a range of rare chairing roles – among them chairing/leading assessments/appraisals/reviews of entities, across a range of fields – Health-Care-Wellbeing-Welfare-Justice-Public Protection-Housing, and a range of events with a spectrum of audience – from broad-audience Health and Justice sector events to specialist learned and professional events. He has the rare distinction of serving in a range of high profile chair/leader roles leading independent investigations/assessments/reviews across statutory institutions and institutions working with public funds, where his independence from establishment and narrow professional & sectoral interests, and his ability to challenge, seeing the bigger picture, to protect public interest and maximise long-term societal value, have made a difference.

For some of his living and international career Amit has worked in new and evolving fields of technology, management & governance. Amit has thus been able to look at professions and professionalism from a Public Protection-Interest-Accountability-Value angle, with nuanced analysis of the ethical dimension, stepping back from narrow “professional protectionism/minimalism” standpoints. He has also advised on Artificial Intelligence and Professional Ethics considerations in a world of increasingly autonomous decision-support and decision-making systems.

Amit has also served as a board member of the Professional Associations Research Network. His wider board portfolio exposes him to a rich variety of professions in various stages of professional definition, regulation and protectionism. On the island of Ireland, besides his work on the Occupational Therapists Registration Board and the Medical Scientists Registration Board covering a complex set of professions, he lends his expertise to improving Practice & Education of Nursing & Midwifery. Beyond the Health sector, on the island, Amit also serves on the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside (CNCC) and as the council’s representative on the DAERA’s Statistics Advisory Committee, and on Steering structure of the EU Special Programmes Body, working to maximise sustainable development and cross-border peace & harmony, through the ~€1B programme.

In the wider world, Amit is also known for chairing charities, serving on Scientific Advisory Bodies and Professional Learned Bodies respected across and beyond OECD, chairing international conferences of learned and professional bodies – also looking into changing nature of learning and practices, and in public protection-engagement-accountability-value maximisation roles. He has recently contributed a series of talks for a learned professional body covering various facets of Professional Life and Professionalism, among them Sustainability, Empathy & Inclusion, and role of Professional & Learned Bodies in modern society.

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