Policy Director, Food Industry Asia (FIA)
Steven leads all policy and advocacy efforts to deliver FIA’s value proposition to its members and other stakeholders, and has developed an engagement strategy that has seen more opportunities to position FIA as a thought leader and drive interaction with its members. As part of the advocacy efforts, Steven drives the issues and stakeholder management strategy for FIA and has successfully implemented a robust management process that sees regular issues scanning and the development of issue and position papers to present the food industry’s position on developments such as obesity and non-communicable disease, sugar tax, marketing to children and nutrition labelling.
He is an experienced writer who has contributed thought leadership to the food industry’s position on issues such as sugar tax, labelling and public-private partnerships to drive better nutrition, in the local and regional media.
Steven is an experienced corporate affairs professional with over 16 years international and regional experience managing issues and stakeholders and delivering communications strategy in the oil and gas industry, hydropower and public utilities, and more recently the food and beverage industry. Prior to this he spent three years as the news manager for a private radio station in Sri Lanka and a correspondent for the Voice of America.
Steven is originally from Sri Lanka and has a B.A in Mass Communication (Broadcasting) from Winona State University, Minnesota, USA.