He is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation and a former government official and health economist who served as the sixteenth administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2010 to 2015.

Shah is the author of the book Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Occurs, which was released by Simon Element on October 10, 2023.

[9] Shah was nominated by President Obama to serve as Chief Scientist and Undersecretary of Agriculture for Research, Education and Economics on April 17, 2009.

Shah was nominated to serve as the sixteenth administrator of USAID on November 10, 2009 and confirmed by the United States Senate unanimously on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2009.

Shah was tasked by President Obama to lead the United States response to the disaster, launching one of the largest humanitarian efforts in history.

As administrator of USAID, Shah restructured $2.9 billion of global health investments to focus on cost-effective ways to save lives of children under the age of five in priority countries.

[19] He created a partnership co-led by Ethiopia, India and UNICEF, "A Promise Renewed", to have more than one hundred partner countries restructure health priorities and invest in measurement to deliver better outcomes.

[28] He also founded and serves as Managing Partner for Latitude Capital, a global emerging markets power and infrastructure private equity firm.

[36] Shah authored the book Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Occurs, which was released by Simon Element on October 10, 2023.

[43] He is also a member on the Council of Foreign Relations[44] On January 4, 2017 he was elected President of the Rockefeller Foundation, the first Indian-American to hold that post.