Rudrashish is a Senior Policy Advisor at the UK Civil Service (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Rudrashish Sinha, MPP
My journey to the LSE’s School of Public Policy was shaped long before I ever opened an application form. Growing up in India, I watched public institutions often struggle to serve communities with the dignity they deserved. But it wasn’t until years later, while working for governments in India, that I realised I needed a deeper understanding of policy design, political systems, and implementation to make the kind of impact I aspired to. That realisation brought me to the MPP at the LSE. My time at the SPP was truly transformative in ways I couldn’t have predicted.
Before attending the LSE, I worked across public institutions in India through government departments and consulting organisations on climate, net-zero, public finance, health, education, and urban development policy. I currently serve as a Senior Policy Advisor in the UK Civil Service at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Every day, I am reminded that policymaking is not just an academic ideal, which is something I learnt at the SPP. I realise that my work affects how families heat their homes, how industries transition to net-zero, how countries navigate an uncertain energy future and how the planet breathes.
One of the most profound lessons from the MPP was that modern-day policymaking resembles playing multiple roles in the same movie: switching characters, shifting perspectives, and adapting to the script of the day. My econometrics classes taught me how to be an intelligent consumer of data and evidence: the kind of policymaker who doesn’t just nod through statistical reports but pauses to ask whether the ‘p-value’ makes any sense. Like this, the mornings often begin with me analysing policy evidence like an economist.
By the afternoon, I am a press officer, drafting public statements on landmark announcements we’re preparing. I am able to leverage a course I took on strategic policymaking led by Prof. Garicano, where we learnt how to frame economic and political narratives to ensure maximum policy-to-impact realisation. Then, evenings turn me into a political affairs officer, preparing a brief for a minister ahead of an imminent decision, guided by the political science training that demystified power, party dynamics, and political risk.
As an underlying theme of the movie, one of the most undervalued skills of a professional working in public policy is their ability to navigate a complex bureaucratic maze to ‘get work done’. I recall drawing directly on the MPP’s foundations in public management and the subtle incentives that shape bureaucratic behaviour, to shape this facet of my role.
Perhaps the most priceless gift at the SPP was the community and a global family I found. My cohort, which was diverse in background, experience, and ambition, but united in purpose, pushed me to grow not only intellectually, but personally. LSE expanded my horizons, but more importantly, it grounded me in a global network of people committed to public purpose.
What my work means to me today is simple: it is a privilege. It is a privilege to solve problems that matter, to serve the public, and to shape systems that outlast any individual career. The LSE and SPP didn’t just give me tools, they helped me understand the kind of policymaker and person I want to be. I hope my journey reassures students and alumni that impact is rarely linear, but always possible with curiosity, collaboration, humility, and conviction.
Rudrashish is happy to connect via LinkedIn