• George Alleyne – Director Emeritus, PAHO (Chair)
• Jeanette Vega – Director, FONASA
• Robert Beaglehole – Chair, The Lancet NCD Action Group
• Sania Nishtar – President, Heartfile
• Precious Matsoso – Director General, National Department Health South Africa
• Jeff Sturchio – CEO, Rabin Martin
• Neil Pearce – Global Asthma Network
• James Hospedales – Executive Director, CARPHA
• Brenda Killen – Head of Global Partnerships and Policy Division, OECD
• Anders Nordstrom - Ambassador for Global Health, Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
George Alleyne – Director Emeritus, PAHO (Chair)
George A.O. Alleyne obtained his bachelor of medicine and surgery degree from the University of London in 1957 and his M.D. from the same university in 1965. He began a career in academic medicine in 1962 at the University of the West Indies, and was appointed Professor of Medicine in 1972.
Dr. Alleyne has served as a member of various bodies, including the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the WHO Tropical Disease Research Program and the Institute of Medicine Committee on Scientific Investigation in Developing Countries. From 1970 to 1981, Dr. Alleyne served as a member and chair of the PAHO Advisory Committee on Medical Research. Dr. Alleyne joined the PAHO staff in 1981 as chief of Research Promotion and Coordination.
In 1983 he became Director of Health Programs Development, and in 1990 he became Assistant Director of the Organization. In 1995 Dr. Alleyne began his first term as Director of PAHO. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II made him Knight Bachelor in 1990 for his services to medicine. In 2001 Sir George Alleyne was awarded the Order of the Caribbean Community, the highest honor that can be conferred on a Caribbean national. He ended his second four-year term as Director of PAHO in 2003.
Jeanette Vega –Director, FONASA
Jeanette Vega joined The Rockefeller Foundation in 2012. As Managing Director, Dr. Vega leads the Foundation’s work in Health including development of strategy, implementation of the Foundation’s current Transforming Health Systems Initiative, and pursuit of new work in the field.
Prior to joining The Rockefeller Foundation, Dr. Vega served as Director of the of the Center of Public Health Policy at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Chile. Before working for the Universidad del Dessarrollo de Chile, she was Vice Minister of health in Chile, leading the country’s 13-step agenda for equity in health.
In 2003, Dr. Vega served as a Director at the World Health Organization in Geneva, where she led the equity in health agenda, looking at the social determinants of health and health systems. Dr. Vega started her career as a medical doctor in Chile specializing in Family Medicine. She has a master’s degree in Public health from the Universidad de Chile and a Ph.D. in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Robert Beaglehole – Chair, The Lancet NCD Action Group
Robert Beaglehole trained in medicine, epidemiology, and public health in New Zealand, England, and the USA before becoming a public health physician. He was Professor of Community Health at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (1988-1999).
He joined the staff of the World Health Organization in 2000, and between 2004 and 2007 directed the Department of Chronic Disease and Health Promotion. He left WHO in February 2007, having reached the UN retirement age and returned to New Zealand. He is now an independent global public health practitioner with a focus on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of Auckland and chairs The Lancet NCD Action Group.
Sania Nishtar – President, Heartfile
Sania Nishtar graduated from medical school in 1986. In 1999 she left a career as Pakistan’s first woman cardiologist to establish the NGO think Etank, Heartfile. She also founded Pakistan’s Health Policy Forum and Heartfile Financing, a program to protect people against health impoverishment.
Internationally, she is a member of many Expert Working Groups and Task Forces of the World Health Organisation, a member of the board of the International Union for Health Promotion, the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council, the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health, the Clinton Global Initiative and is Chair of GAVI’s Evaluation Advisory Committee.
She has previously led many global initiatives. Sania Nishtar is a key health policy voice in Pakistan, the author of Pakistan’s first health reform plan, Pakistan’s first compendium of health statistics, and the country’s first national public health plan for NCDs. She is a member of many boards, advisory groups and task forces and a voice to catalyze change at the broader governance level in Pakistan. She is the recipient of Pakistan’s Sitara e-Imtiaz, a presidential award, the European Societies Population Science Award, and the Global Innovation award. Sania Nishtar holds a Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and a Ph.D from Kings College, London.
Precious Matsoso – Director General, Dept Health South Africa
Ms Malebona Precious Matsoso is the Director General of the National Department of Health. Ms Matsoso holds a degree in Pharmacy from the University of Western Cape, a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Management from the University of Cape Town, and a Masters degree in Law and Ethics (LLM) from the University of Dundee.
As a pharmacist she has worked in both the public and private sector at management level. She was a Director in Public Health Innovation and Intellectual Property (PHI) in the office of the Director General, of the World Health Organisation (WHO) serving as WHO Secretariat on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property. Her career within the field of medicine control have included posts as Head of Medicines Control Council (MCC), member of the National Research Ethics Council of South Africa, and the Director of the Essential Drugs and Traditional Medicines Programme for the South African Health Department as well as being a member of various advisory panels with an emphasis on improving access to medicines and antiretrovirals.
Prior to this she was the Registrar of Medicines of the National Drug Regulatory Authority in South Africa and has produced over 40 technical guidelines. She has been a member of various advisory panels locally and internationally, mainly tasked with improving access to medicines.
Jeff Sturchio – CEO, Rabin Martin
At Rabin Martin, Jeff specializes in implementing stakeholder engagement and alliance development strategies for private sector, multilateral and NGO clients, designing new “bottom of the pyramid” business models and tiered pricing approaches to improve the health of vulnerable populations, developing innovative market access strategies for emerging markets, leading the development of policy frameworks for private sector engagement in global chronic disease prevention, treatment and care.
Jeff previously served as Vice President of Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co. Inc., and President of The Merck Company Foundation, where he led several major public-private partnerships, including the Mectizan Donation Program and the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships in Botswana.
He has also served as Chairman of the Corporate Council on Africa and President and CEO of the Global Health Council. Jeff is chairman of the BroadReach Institute of Training and Education, serves on the Board of the U.S. Pharmacopeia, and is active in many organizations such as the Clinton Global Initiative and the Council on Foreign Relations. He has published widely on business and global health, and is a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health and the Study of Business Enterprise and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Neil Pearce – Global Asthma Network
Neil Pearce is a member of the Global Asthma Network Steering Group, and is the Director of the Centre for Global NCDs at LSHTM. Prior to joining LSHTM in 2011, Neil worked in New Zealand for 30 years. He originally trained in biostatistics, before completing a PhD in epidemiological methods in 1985.
Since then, he has been engaged in a wide range of public health research activities, including ten years at the Massey University Centre for Public Health research. He co-founded the Wellington Asthma Research Group (WARG) at the Wellington School of Medicine in 1988 and established the Massey University Centre for Public Health Research in 2000. Neil has a broad range of research interests with a common theme of applied epidemiological and biostatistical methods, particularly methods of study design and data analysis for non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
Particular projects have covered asthma management in the community, asthma mortality, causes of asthma, cancer, diabetes, neurological disease, environmental health, health inequalities, and health of indigenous peoples. He has published textbooks on occupational epidemiology and asthma epidemiology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ) and the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSCi) and is Past-President of the International Epidemiological Association.
James Hospedales – Executive Director, CARPHA
Dr. C James Hospedales is Executive Director, Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA). Previously, Dr. Hospedales was Senior Advisor and Coordinator, Prevention and Control of Chronic Diseases, Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization.
From 1998–2006, Dr. Hospedales was Director of the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre, serving 21 countries. He played a key role in developing donor partnerships for HIV/AIDS prevention, and a partnership with the Caribbean tourism industry to improve health, safety and environment conditions. Dr. Hospedales was a member of the Caribbean Commission on Health and Development, which made policy recommendations to the Heads of Government and named chronic diseases as a super-priority for the Region.
This work contributed significantly to the build-up to the recent agreement to have a UN Summit on Chronic Disease in Sept 2011. Dr. Hospedales’ career has included service as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the US Centers for Disease Control, as an epidemiologist at CAREC, and several years working in public health for the UK National Health Service. Dr. Hospedales graduated with honors in medicine from UWI in 1980. He has a M.Sc. in Community medicine from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is a Fellow of UK Faculty of Public Health.
Brenda Killen – Head of Global Partnerships and Policy Division, OECD
Ms. Killen is Head of OECD’s Global Partnerships and Policy Division and was previously Director of the Aid Effectiveness Division. Among other functions, this division works to monitor implementation and drive international progress on development, through the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation in partnership with UNDP.
Ms. Killen has a MSc in Economics from the London School and prior to her current position at OECD, she worked at the World Health Organization (WHO) as Deputy Director of Health Policy, Development and Services from 2004 to 2007. Prior to joining WHO, she worked for the Department for International Development (DFID) in the UK where she was Head of the Europe, Middle East and Americas Policy Department.
An experienced development economist, she was previously DFID’s Senior Economic Adviser for Asia and, from 1996-1999, was an adviser to the UK Executive Director on the board of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Anders Nordström - Ambassador for Global Health, Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Dr Nordström is the Ambassador for Global Health in the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Previously, he was the Ambassador for HIV/AIDS for the Swedish government. As a medical doctor from the Karolinska Institut, Sweden, He has a background that combines development experience in the field, national and international health policy and planning, and strategic leadership. During 2002, Dr Nordström was the Interim Executive Director for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, after having being part of the Transitional Working Group during 2001.
In this capacity he laid the foundations for the Global Fund’s present structure, through managing the Secretariat, preparing technical reviews and grant agreements as well as recruitments. Dr Nordström took office as Assistant Director-General at WHO for General Management in July 2003 and was the Acting Director-General of WHO from 23 May 2006 until 3 January 2007.
After the successful handing over to Dr Margaret Chan, he was appointed Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Services. From January 2008 until June 2010, Dr Nordström served as Director-General for the Swedish International Agency for Development Cooperation (Sida). He also serves on the Board of GAVI, and is an alternate board member at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.