Speakers

Below were speakers for the 2015 conference. A listing in alphabetical order can be found within the right-hand menu. Click on an individual's name to jump to their bio. speakers

Speaker Bios

Keynote

Girish Sinha
United Nations Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER)
Former Director of Mission Support

Girish  Sinha

Mr. Girish Sinha recently retired in June 2015 from his last assignment as Director of Mission Support (DMS) for the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER).  This was the first health emergency response mission ever launched by the United Nations, and it was mandated with the role of coordination of the United Nations System response to combat the Ebola virus disease in Guinea, Liberia, Mali, and Sierra Leone. The nature of the Mission required innovative operations including the integration of UN air assets with WFP UNHAS as well as the establishment of a geospatial information telecommunications technology to serve as the backbone infrastructure of the entire operation across four countries.

Mr. Sinha was born in Bihair, India. He is a graduate of Defense Services Staff College, Wellington (India) and Molinovsky Academy (Moscow). After 22 years of service with the Indian Armed Forces, he left the service at the rank of Colonel and joined the United Nations. He has served at the UN in a number of roles. In each mission, his objective has been to deliver uninterrupted operational support to the peacekeepers in the areas of rations, fuel, water and sanitation, medical, transport, communications, and accommodation. 

From 1993-1997 he was Chief of Integrated Support Services in Mozambique (ONUMOZ), Angola (UNAVEM II) and Macedonia (UNPREDEP). From 1997-1999 he moved to New York where he was Chief of Transport Section in the Logistics Support Division of DPKO. He then worked with UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) as Chief of Integrated Support Services. He was responsible for provision of effective, efficient and timely supports to all components of UNIFIL at all locations, including inter alia, oversight of the development of an administrative system and efficient supply chain.

He then moved back to LSD/DPKO as Chief of Logistics Operations from March 2001 - February 2002 and again as Chief of Transport Section, LSD/DPKO until October 2003. Prior to joining UNOMIG Mr. Sinha was Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), and he has actively participated in the Technical Survey and establishment of new missions e.g. Sierra Leone and Liberia. Finally, before serving as DMS on UNMEER, Mr. Sinha was director in Entebbe responsible for number of support initiatives of the Department related to Business Process Re-Engineering post-UMOJA (Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Solution’s Deployment in the Field). 

Alasan Senghore
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
Regional Director, Africa

Alasan Senghore

Alasan Senghore became director of Africa for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in October 2009 – based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is responsible for managing the IFRC’s humanitarian activities covering 49 countries throughout the continent. He started his Red Cross Red Crescent career in 1976 when he worked as a youth and field officer for the Gambia Red Cross and later became its Secretary General (1986 -1992).

Alasan later joined the IFRC in 1992 as a relief administrator for the Somali refugee operation in Kenya, later becoming head of sub-delegation and then head of delegation for Kenya until June 1994. He returned to the Gambia Red Cross as Secretary General until August 1995. In September 1995, he joined the ICRC as a cooperation delegate in Kenya and later became the ICRC deputy head of mission to the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and, later, the ICRC’s cooperation delegate and deputy head of the regional delegation in Harare, Zimbabwe (2000-2008). He later became head of sector for Africa at the cooperation department of the ICRC in Geneva (2000-2002).

In January 2003, Alasan re-joined IFRC as head of regional delegation for Southern Africa, and then in June 2004 became the head of the regional delegation for West and Central Africa. In 2007, he became the head of zone for West and Central Africa. Following the merger of the former three Africa Zones into one, he was appointed Director of the Africa Zone in October 2009, a position he holds until now. Alasan Senghore holds an MBA from Liverpool University and a diploma on development studies from the Pan African Institute for Development in Cameroon. Born in the Gambia on 8th January,1957. He speaks English and French.


Trip Allport
3 Degrees Ventures
Founder & Owner

Trip Allport

Trip Allport is the Founder and Managing Director of 3 Degrees Ventures which focuses on brokering and managing large cross-sector partnerships in health in Africa, supporting market-oriented and systems-level solutions to the world’s most challenging development issues.  For 10 years Trip was a Strategy Consultant with Accenture, that last 5 of which he built and managed Accenture Development Partnerships’ Africa business unit, which focused on providing non-profit consulting to the international development sector.  Trip was responsible for driving business development, managing client relationships and providing strategy input to and oversight of live projects all across Africa.  

Trip currently provides a leadership role to three high profile partnerships. Project Last Mile: PLM aims to leverage the expertise of the Coca-Cola Company and its bottling partners in the areas of supply chain to help build the capacity of Ministries of Health across Africa to improve availability of medicines.  The partnership has a 5 year, $23m commitment to scale to 10 countries across the continent, bringing together USAID, TheBill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Global Fund, together with Coca-Cola and its bottling partners, Ministries of Health and other implementing partners.  Africa Resource Center;  ARC aims to bring together Ministries of Health, donors and private sector players to improve supply chain performance in Africa by aligning the efforts of all sectors to transform national supply chain organizations and improve availability.  ARC is a Gates Foundation driven programme that will scale to include other major donors and some of the largest private sector organizations focused on health supply in Africa.  Health Enablement & Learning Platform:  HELP aims to build and deploy a sustainable mobile health learning and enablement application that builds the capacity of frontline health workers.  HELP works in partnership with Ministries of Health to digitize their national curriculum for training health workers, and in partnership with other implementing organizations to deliver it.  HELP is a partnership between the Ministry of Health in Kenya, Vodafone (including Safaricom and M-Pesa Foundations in Kenya), Accenture and Accenture Foundation, and Amref Health Africa.

Trip lives in Cape Town, South Africa and travels widely across the continent to deliver and oversee partnerships and programmes driving impact on the ground, as well as in Europe and US to engage global donors, multilaterals and private sector organizations to develop new partnerships and opportunities for cross-sector collaboration.    

Iain Barton
Imperial Health Sciences
Managing Director

Iain Barton

Dr. Iain Barton is a leading expert in developing and implementing best practice supply chain functions appropriate in the global health context. A committed South African, Dr. Barton is a medical doctor with 10 years of clinical medical practice and 15 years of experience in supply chain management. He earned his MBChB at the University of Cape Town and HIS diploma in obstetrics at the South Africa College of Medicine. Dr. Barton specializes in pharmaceutical distribution and information technology specific to pharmaceutical procurement and logistics and also focuses on new business start-ups and international business development.

Dr. Barton is currently the managing director of Imperial Health Sciences (IHS), which provides complete supply chain management services across Africa for 32 pharmaceutical suppliers, national departments of health, the Global Fund, and PEPFAR’s Supply Chain Management System (SCMS). He was responsible for developing the concept of Regional Distribution Centers to support the scale-up of the PEPFAR program, which provides life-saving drugs and commodities for HIV patients in 17 countries across Africa. 

Rob Botha
Imperial Health Sciences
Public Health Consultant

Rob Botha

Rob Botha is a pharmacist with over 18 years’ experience in pharmaceutical distribution. He was previously CEO of one of the largest pharmaceutical distributors in South Africa. Rob joined Imperial Health Sciences in 2013 and holds the position of Program Manager – Public Health. He is currently seconded to the South African field office of SCMS (a PEPFAR funded and USAID administered project). Rob’s current work involves the establishment of the Direct Delivery strategy and establishment of the national Control Tower on behalf of the National Department of Health.

Margaret Brandeau
Stanford University
Coleman F. Fung Professor in the School of Engineering and a Professor of Medicine (by Courtesy)

Margaret Brandeau

Professor Brandeau is the Coleman F. Fung Professor in the School of Engineering and a Professor of Medicine (by Courtesy). She holds a BS in Mathematics and an MS in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a PhD in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford. She is an operations researcher and policy analyst with extensive background in the development of applied mathematical and economic models, and a distinguished investigator in HIV. Among other awards, she has received the President’s Award from the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) for contributions to the welfare of society and the Pierskalla Prize from INFORMS for research excellence in health care management science.

Professor Brandeau has published numerous articles in areas of applied operations research and policy analysis, has co-edited the books Modeling the AIDS Epidemic: Planning, Policy, and Prediction and Operations Research in Health: A Handbook of Methods and Applications, and has served as Principal Investigator on a broad range of funded research projects. She has served on the board of several journals, including Operations Research, Management Science, and Health Care Management Science. Her HIV research focuses on using mathematical and economic models to assess the value of different HIV and drug abuse interventions, both in the U.S. and abroad. Recently she has studied policies for control of Hepatitis B both in the US and abroad, and preparedness planning for potential bioterror attacks.

Andrew Brown
People That Deliver Initiative
Executive Manager

Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown is the Consultant Executive Manager for the People that Deliver (PtD) Initiative. Andrew joined the Initiative in June 2013 following an Assistant Professor position at the University of Canberra. He is a pharmacist by background with an 18 year career in hospital and community pharmacy management, before engaging in health supply chain management capacity development since 2007. His initial country based activity has been in the Asia Pacific Region with UNFPA and WHO. More recently he has had the privilege of engaging with the PtD focus countries in Africa.

Michal Bruck
Avenir Analytics
International Projects Manager

Michal Bruck

Michal is a supply chain specialist and project manager with over 15 years of experience in humanitarian operations and NGO management. This includes 6 years as a project manager and logistics officer in the United Nations World Food Programme. She was involved in the set up and operation of the logistics cluster in Liberia, as part of the Ebola response, and is now involved in efforts to strengthen the infection prevention and emergency health capabilities in hospitals around the country. Michal has notably served as the manager of the Food Management Improvement Project, a joint programme between the United Nations and the government to improve the humanitarian food supply chain in Ethiopia. The programme included supply chain mapping, standardisation and harmonisation of processes, creation of a tracking system and improvement of the storage network and the transport contracting arrangements. She has also managed a corporate Logistics Service Provision project, concentrating at logistics and procurement services provided by WFP to other humanitarian actors and organisations around the world. Michal holds a Bachelor of Law from the Hebrew University and an International Organizations MBA from the University of Geneva.

Otto Chabikuli
Family Health International 360
Director, East and Southern Africa

Otto Chabikuli

Otto Nzapfurundi Chabikuli is a family physician and health systems and policy analyst with experience in clinical work, teaching, research and management in the public, private and nongovernmental health sectors. He currently directs FHI 360’s work in the East and Southern Africa region, with projects focused on health (including HIV and AIDS; tuberculosis; family planning; nutrition; and water, sanitation and hygiene), civil society strengthening, livelihoods and economic strengthening, education, environment, research and youth development. Chabikuli previously served as FHI 360’s Country Director in Nigeria, Africa Regional Technical Director, and Director of the Southern Africa Regional Office.

Prior to joining FHI 360, Chabikuli was Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Pretoria, Director for the Centre for Health Policy at Wits University’s School of Public Health, and District Health Systems Development Facilitator with the Health Systems Trust in South Africa. He was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and obtained his medical degree and a master’s degree in family medicine from the Medical University of Southern Africa, as well as a Master of Sciences in Health Systems Management from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is a member of several professional associations and has an appointment as Associate Professor at Howard University in Washington, DC, and the Walter Sisulu University in South Africa.

Hervé d'Almeida
Togo Ministry of Health / Centrale d'Achat des Medicaments Essentiels et Generiques de Togo (CAMEG)
Program Director/Directeur des Projets et Programmes de Sante

Hervé d'Almeida

Pharmacien de profession, Dr d’ALMEIDA a fait par la suite un Master en logistique/transport. Avec plus de 8 années d’expériences dans l’approvisionnement et la gestion des stocks des produits de santé, il est actuellement le Directeur de l’Approvisionnement et de la Gestion des Stocks de la Centrale d’Achat des Médicaments Essentiels et Génériques du Togo. Il intervient également au niveau du Ministère de la Santé du Togo au sein de l’Unité de Gestion des Projets financés par le Fonds Mondial de lutte contre le SIDA, la Tuberculose et le Paludisme en qualité d’expert en approvisionnement des intrants médicaux.

Jarno de Lange
IMRES Health Solutions
International Account Manager

Jarno de Lange

Jarno de Lange has over eight years of experience in the field of humanitarian aid supply. He began working at the IMRES headquarters in the Netherlands before making a strategic move to Canada where he effectively manages partnerships with North American NGO’s, relief agencies and government institutions, while carrying out IMRES’s mission of providing quality generic pharmaceuticals and medical supplies to developing countries.

Jarno spearheaded IMRES’s emergency response program by prepositioning Emergency Health kits, and specializes in providing emergency response solutions to populations affected by large and small scale devastation from natural disaster or conflict zones. Jarno has built strong relationships with NGO’s, relief agencies, suppliers and logistic teams around the world allowing him to become an expert in emergency response and to gain a deep understanding of the complexities facing humanitarian disasters in the health sector.

Clinton de Souza
Imperial Health Sciences
Director - Public Health

Clinton de Souza

Clinton de Souza joined the group in 1994 in New Business Development, before moving to the healthcare division in 2010. Clinton has held several senior management positions including Sales Director of the South African logistics business ($125 mil pa revenue) and General Manager: Organizational Development. His career expands twenty one years in Supply Chain strategy, operations and deployment throughout the African Continent. He has spent much of this time working with the Healthcare, Technology and Consumer Goods sectors where he has developed and deployed Supply Chain solutions on the African Continent for the private and public sectors.

 In 2011, Clinton was seconded to the USA to join the SCMS project (PEPFAR implementing partner) where he has held two roles: first as Freight & Logistics Manager for the Global Supply Chain and more recently as the Warehousing & Distribution Principle Advisor where he works with the SCMS field offices in supporting host Government’s healthcare supply chains. Clinton also heads the Public Health Consulting division of Imperial Health Sciences where he is responsible for approximately 20–30 supply chain consultants working within various public health systems throughout Africa and the developing world. He holds an MBA from the Henley Management College, University of Reading (UK) 2009.

Fernanda Debellian
APICS SCC
Regional Director for Central and South America

Fernanda Debellian

Fernanda is the Regional Director for Central and South America for APICS SCC.  She has over 17 years of experience in manufacturing, inventory management, logistics operations and distribution network design for multinational companies such as SCJohnson and Shell Lubricants. Prior to joining APICS, Fernanda served for five years as an employee and later as a supply chain consultant for the International Trachoma Initiative, a drug donation program within the Task Force for Global Health, working with African countries in training and education of all aspects of the supply chain, drug management and distribution. 

Fernanda holds a B.S.in Chemical Engineering from the Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, and a M.Sc. degree in Management of Logistics and Production Systems from the École des Mines de Nantes, France. 

Luke Disney
NorthStar Alliance
Executive Director

Luke Disney

Luke Disney is the executive director of North Star Alliance. He joined North Star in 2007 as director fundraising and communications and became the organization’s first executive director in 2008. Prior to North Star, Luke worked at TNT Express on the Moving the World initiative, a groundbreaking partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme praised by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as “an excellent example of the way private corporations can cooperate with United Nations agencies to do vital life-saving work.”

North Star Alliance works at the crossroads of disease and mobility to ensure that highly mobile populations, especially truck drivers and their direct and indirect contacts have access to quality health and safety services. North Star is strengthening national health systems by expanding their reach and plugging the gaps through a network of “Roadside Wellness Centres” (RWCs) located at hotspots along major transport corridors in sub-Saharan Africa. North Star’s unique approach unites the transport and public health sectors in a common response to high-impact diseases.

James Dorbor Jallah
Government of Liberia
former Deputy Incident Manager for Support Services at the National Ebola Command Center

James Dorbor Jallah

James Dorbor Jallah organized key logistical activities for the Government of Liberia (GoL) during the Ebola response, initially as the National Ebola Task Force Coordinator and later as the Deputy Incident Manager for Support Services at the National Ebola Command Center. He is currently the Executive Director of the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission for the GoL. Mr. Jallah has previously served as the Deputy Minister for Sectoral and Regional Planning for the GoL and Dean of the Business College at Stella Maris Polytechnic. Mr. Jallah received his B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Liberia, M.Eng. in Logistics and Supply Chain Management through the MIT-Zaragoza program at the University of Zaragoza (Spain), and was a Humphrey Fellow at MIT.

Kevin Etter
UPS Foundation/GAVI
Executive on Loan to GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance

Kevin Etter

Kevin has over 30 years’ experience in logistics and strategy. For the past 7 years, Kevin has worked with the UPS Foundation in the areas of public health and safety. Kevin is currently on loan in Geneva with GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance), where he is applying private sector logistics strategy and implementation to the GAVI supply chain. While at the UPS Foundation, Kevin served as part of the Logistics Emergency Team (LET) for the UN World Food Programme as well as working with the Task Force for Global Health Partnership for Influenza Vaccine Introduction (PIVI) and the National Academies of Science Institute of Medicine Forum for Public Private Partnerships. He also participated on the Humanitarian Relief Steering Committee as well as fundraising for the United Way in partnership with the foundation. Kevin has worked in product management at UPS for the healthcare logistics global strategy group for both technology solutions and humanitarian aid programs in Louisville, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Atlanta.

Kevin serves on the Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America as well as the United Way of Central Kentucky and he regularly volunteers with other community organizations. Kevin received a B.Sc. in Business and Economics from the Gatton College at the University of Kentucky.

Martin Ewert
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Supply Chain Specialist (Sub Sahara)

Martin Ewert

Martin Ewert has recently joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on a 2 year secondment as Supply Chain Officer with focus on Sub Sahara.  Martin Ewert boasts 26 years of experience with leading FMCG company, Procter & Gamble (P&G).  He has extensive experience as Product Supply Manager across different P&G product lines in developed and developing markets across the world.

Martin has occupied leadership roles in the following portfolios at P&G: Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Innovation.  He has built experience in various product categories as well as multiple geographies. He was instrumental in designing the Supply Network in Eastern Europe. He was also influential in creating a synchronized and cash-positive Supply Chain Model in Western Europe. Currently, he is at the helm of the Supply Chain Portfolio for Procter & Gamble Sub Sahara. Important on his agenda for Sub Sahara is the creation of an integrated Supply Chain across the region in order to drive profitable business growth in Sub Sahara; that includes leadership in service, lean Supply Chain management in cost and cash as well as enabling best in class innovation deployment across the region. P&G Supply Chain performance has step changed under his leadership and has moved from #14 ranking to #2 by retail customers.

Shabana Farooqi
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
Director

Shabana Farooqi

Shabana is a Director in PwC’s Health Industries Advisory Services Practice. She specializes in supply chain management and organizational effectiveness, and has extensive experience in supply chain planning and optimization, change management, enterprise risk management, and strategy development and realignment. She primarily serves pharmaceutical and life sciences clients, as well as public sector and multi-lateral organizations within the global health and development field. Shabana previously worked for PRTM Management Consultants and Booz Allen Hamilton.  She received her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and her Bachelor of Science in Commerce from the University of Virginia.

Mureji Fatunde
McKinsey & Company
Senior Delivery Analyst

Mureji Fatunde

Mureji is a Senior Delivery Analyst at McKinsey & Company, where she has spent nearly two years addressing strategy, operations, and organizational topics on behalf of healthcare organizations in Nigeria and the United States. She has spent more than half of this time exploring various challenges related to global health supply chains in Nigeria. Prior to joining McKinsey, she conducted policy research with the Medical Device Unit of the World Health Organization. She has published research on the availability and reliability of medical equipment in low-resource settings as well as the development of measurement tools to help illuminate medical equipment resource gaps. Mureji obtained an MSc in Health Economics from the London School of Economics and a BA in Biomedical Engineering from Harvard University.

Ross Feehan
Last Mile Health
Supply Chain, Logistics, and Operations Officer

Ross Feehan

Ross currently oversees the national supply chain for Last Mile Health, which specializes in developing and managing community health workers to bridge the gap between clinics and remote villages. He has built operational systems for scale and has established metrics to evaluate operational performance. Prior to his post in Liberia, Ross served as a principal investigator for the Indian Social Institute in New Delhi, where he supervised project logistics for ethnographic fieldwork. In India, he also designed and implemented a peacebuilding program for college students. Ross’ experience in project management includes analysis of aquaculture and agricultural markets as well as extensive research management in China. Ross has applied his interest in logistics and process improvement to humanitarian operations through volunteer work with the Red Cross. Ross earned a B.S. and M.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University with a focus on food security, agricultural supply chains, and systems analysis, among other topics.

Michael Fleming
McKinsey & Company
Practice Expert

Michael  Fleming

Michael is a Expert in McKinsey’s Global Public Health practice and is based in Washington, DC. His areas of specialty include supply chain, procurement and manufacturing strategy for health commodities. In his four years with McKinsey, Michael has led projects in the area of vaccine supply chain management and cold chain equipment procurement in West Africa, as well as projects in healthcare manufacturer strategy, distribution optimization and supply chain finance. Before joining McKinsey, he worked in private sector procurement for large and mid cap clients with the Mitchell Madison Group in South Africa, the UK, and the US. Michael earned an MSc in Physics from the University of Auckland and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

Patrick Githendu
The Global Fund to Fight AIDs Tuberculosis and Malaria
Senior Project Manager, Supply Chain

Patrick Githendu

Patrick Githendu has over 13 years of experience as a pharmacist with advanced knowledge of Pharmaceutical and Health Product Management at International, National and Regional levels. He is currently working for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) as a supply chain expert on global initiatives and country projects. This role also involves working to improve the capacity of countries in the area of procurement and supply management (PSM). Previously he worked as a Procurement and Supply Management Specialist for High Impact Africa 1 Department of the division of Grant Management, working with Fund Portfolio Managers and recipient countries in ensuring that (PSM)activities were conducted in line with the Global Fund’s Procurement and Supply Management Policies. He has previously worked in Namibia as a Procurement Manager for the Global Fund’s Principal Recipient and Pharmacy coordinator at the Directorate of Special Programs dealing with HIV, TB and Malaria. He also served in the Ministry of Health of Kenya at a Provincial hospital. Patrick’s specialties include Pharmaceutical and Health Product Management, including Procurement and Supply Management.

Jarrod Goentzel
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Founder and Director, Humanitarian Response Lab

Jarrod Goentzel

Jarrod Goentzel is founder and director of the MIT Humanitarian Response Lab, which strives to make supply chains more responsive to human needs. His research focuses on supply chain design and management, transportation procurement and planning, humanitarian needs assessments, information management and the use of technology to facilitate decision-making. Based in the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, Dr. Goentzel has developed graduate-level courses in supply chain finance, international operations and humanitarian logistics. Previously, Dr. Goentzel was Executive Director of the MIT Supply Chain Management program, a nine-month professional master’s degree program. He joined MIT in 2003 to establish the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program with the Zaragoza Logistics Center in Spain.

Chandresh (Chan) Harjivan
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
Partner

Chandresh (Chan) Harjivan

Dr. Chan Harjivan, PharmD, MBA, MPH is a Principal in PwC’s Global Public Health practice. He has fifteen years of experience advising public health organizations and pharmaceutical and life science corporations on their strategy and operations. Working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and many other global health focused organizations, Chan has dedicated his career to accelerate development, delivery, and access to health care innovations and products in least developed countries. He also advised US Government agencies such as the DoD, DHS, and HHS, on managing public health emergency preparedness and response. He has worked with several laboratories and institutes working to develop diagnostic, forensic, vaccine and drug countermeasures against global health threats, including Ebola. As a thought leader for public health R&D and supply chain strategy, Chan has chaired and presented at a range conferences, and he is published in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Financial Times, Homeland Security, and Modern Healthcare on topics such as antimicrobial resistance, supply chain strategy, biosurveillance, biodefense, frugal innovation, sustainability, and mobile health. Chan is on the Board of Directors of the Center of Refugee and Disaster Response at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Steven Harsono
William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan
Senior Advisor & Senior Manager, Healthcare Supply Chain

Steven Harsono

Steven Harsono is Senior Advisor and Senior Manager of Supply Chain for the Healthcare Initiative at the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan. He provides leadership and technical guidance for WDI’s work in improving healthcare supply chain performance in emerging economies. Over the last 10 years, Harsono has worked across the public and private sectors in over 20 countries.  He draws on his diverse experiences working with the McDonald’s Corporation on the integration of its global supply chain, pharmaceutical companies improving pricing and access in emerging markets, and Ministries of Health seeking to transform their supply chains.  Prior to joining WDI, he worked for Axios International, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, and HAVI Global Solutions. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics and international relations from Wheaton College in Illinois and is fluent in French and Bahasa Indonesia.

Tania Holt
McKinsey & Company
Associate Principal

Tania  Holt

Tania Zulu Holt is an Associate Partner at McKinsey. She started her career in the London office in 2008 and subsequently re-located to Johannesburg in 2010, to pursue her passion for the continent and help expand McKinsey’s activities in health care across Africa. She leads McKinsey’s healthcare activities across Africa, motivated by a personal passion for extending access to affordable and high-quality healthcare services and products. Tania works at the intersection between private companies, governments and social stakeholders across the whole continent, with deep expertise in countries such as Nigeria.Prior to joining McKinsey, she worked with the Danish Ministry of Health. A health economist by profession, she holds a MSc in Health Economics/International health policy from the London School of Economics and a BSc in Economics from Copenhagen University

Marianne Jahre
Department of Strategy and Logistics, BI Norwegian Business School
Professor

Marianne Jahre

Marianne Jahre is professor of logistics at Lund University and BI Norwegian Business School. She has co-edited and co-authored several books and articles in International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management and International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications, among others. She has been doing research and taught logistics since 1989, is responsible for the master’s program in logistics at BI and for humanitarian logistics in Lund. She has been working with humanitarian logistics since 2007, in particular cooperating with Red Cross, UNICEF, and UNHCR and she is an international delegate to the Norwegian Red Cross.

Dianna Kane
Medic Mobile
Senior Designer

Dianna Kane

Dianna Kane leads the global design practice and serves as user champion at Medic Mobile, a non-profit technology company that leverages mobile and web tools to improve healthcare in marginalized communities. Dianna works with Medic Mobile’s partners to build organizational capacity for conducting participatory design research and to translate insights into practical tools. Dianna has a background in global health and anthropology and ten years of experience working at both the community- and systems-level in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the United States. Dianna is a graduate of the University of Cape Town, earning a MPhil in HIV/AIDS, and holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from Fordham University in New York City. She is based in San Francisco, California.

Pinar Keskinocak
Georgia Institute of Technology
William W. George Chair, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Associate Director of Research for the Health Systems Institute; Co-director, Center for Health & Humanitarian Systems

Pinar Keskinocak

Dr. Keskinocak’s research focuses on the applications of operations research and management science with societal impact, particularly health and humanitarian applications, supply chain management, and logistics/transportation. Her recent work has addressed infectious disease modeling, evaluating intervention strategies, and resource allocation; catch-up scheduling for vaccinations; hospital operations management; disaster preparedness and response (e.g., prepositioning inventory); debris management; centralized and decentralized price and lead time decisions.

She has worked on projects with companies, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and healthcare providers, including American Red Cross, CARE, CDC, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory University Hospital, Grady Memorial Hospital, and Intel Corporation. Previously she served as INFORMS Vice President of Membership and Professional Recognition, the co-founder and president of INFORMS Section on Public Programs, Service, and Needs, and the president of the INFORMS Health Applications Society.

Päivi Laurila
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Head of Sector, Somalia and Eurasia/ Deputy Head of Health Unit

Päivi  Laurila

Dr. Päivi Laurila is the Deputy Head of Health Unit for the International Committee of the Red Cross. She covers two geographical areas for Health programming: Somalia and Eurasia (Europe, Balkans, Caucasus and Central-Aisa). Dr. Laurila is the focal person in ICRC Health Unit for the partnership with the National Societies  of the Red Crosses and Red Crescents. Dr. Laurila has worked in operational management in the field 1991-2008 as Medical Coordinator with ICRC (Sudan, Somalia, ex-Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Uganda,  Liberia and Afghanistan) and then worked at the HQ of Finnish RC as Deputy Director of International Operations (2010-2013). Since 2013 she has been Head of Sector/Health at the HQ of ICRC.

She is a medical doctor, specialized in anaesthesiology.  She holds MSc in Health Services Management from the LSHTM, University of  London, UK and MSc in Human Resource Management and Development from IDPM, University of Manchester, UK and DTM&H from University of Liverpool, UK. 

Ed Llewellyn
Accenture Development Partnerships
Africa Lead

Ed Llewellyn

Ed is the Africa Lead for Accenture Development Partnerships. He is a supply chain specialist whose portfolio of clients includes ministries of health and agriculture; international development donors; global brand names in FMCG, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications, as well as NGO’s and social enterprises. He worked for Accenture’s supply chain practices in London for seven years until 2010, and since then has worked with Accenture Development Partnerships across eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Maeve Magner

Independent Supply Chain Consultant

Maeve Magner

With over 29 years’ experience, Maeve has accumulated a wealth of international experience, in both public and private sectors. She has worked across different Supply Chain functional areas for multi-national organizations including Dell, Tippingpoint and Capgemini and in the development space for CHAI. More recently Maeve was the CEO for the largest privately owned 3PL in Africa (RTT TransAfrica now Imperial Health Sciences) before returning to a role as an independent advisor working with global donors advocating for and designing interventions for better supply chain management in developing countries and the inclusion of the private sector in solving the supply chain challenges.

Mustafa Zubairu Mahmud
Nigeria National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA)
Director of Logistics and Health Commodities

Mustafa Zubairu Mahmud

Dr Mustafa Zubairu Mahmud is the Director of Logistics and Health Commodities and Chairman of Project Implementation and the National Logistics Working groups for the Nigerian National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA). Since 2014, he has been responsible for leading and nurturing the department and the entire logistics system of the country to a world class logistics and supply chain outfit. He has recently undertaken capability building initiatives for the new department working in partnership with BMGF via McKinsey. Under his leadership, the department has produced a vaccine dashboard for the country enhancing accountability, built a collaborative partnership base for an end to end transformation of the logistics supply chain and is developing a 5 year strategic plan 2015-2020.

From 2010-14, Dr. Mahmud was Chief Medical Officer for Immunization  and lead the immunization team and others in coordinating and developing national technical policies in terms of formulation, implementation, monitoring, reviews and evaluation. As Chief Executive coordinating all units under the Executive Director’s office, he launched three projects with resounding success, namely Majigi, traditional leaders in immunization strengthening of the zonal offices resulting in establishment of Northern Traditional Leaders Committee on Polio, Routine Immunization and PHC. This was the singular most important factor in reducing the spread of polio in northern Nigeria.

Dr. Mahmud has also worked in a number of roles in managing patient care, both as the proprietor of a medical facility and as the consulting physician for clinical services ranging from surgical, gynecological, obstetric, pediatric and internal medicine care to patients while training nurses, midwives, community health extension workers and others. Dr. Mahmud earned his B.S. from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, and completed course work in partial completion of an MBA at University of Ilorin. He also received a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Lagos in 2004. In May 2015, Dr. Mahmud completed the certificate program hosted by Georgia Tech in Health & Humanitarian Supply Chain Management.

Mark McCaul
Médecins Sans Frontiéres
Supply Chain Officer - Southern Africa & India

Mark McCaul

Mark McCaul works as Supply Chain Officer for Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) ensuring the quality and effectiveness of the Supply Chain for the HIV/TB programs and services of MSF, Operational Centre Brussels.  He earned a Master’s degree in International Relations, where he specialized in development policies and completed further post-graduate training in International Supply Chain Management. Working with MSF has taken him to Central African Republic, India, Malawi, Mozambique, Ukraine, South Africa and Zimbabwe; in projects ranging from primary health care supervision to hospital start-up work, and from conflict zones to refugee camps.

Dr. Ado Muhammad
Nigeria National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA)
Executive Director

Ado Muhammad

Dr. Ado Jimada Gana Muhammad was appointed Executive Director/CEO of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) on the 1st November 2011. Prior to his Appointment, Dr Ado served as a Special Assistant in the Presidential State House, Abuja. Dr. Ado J.G. Muhammad came to the NPHCDA with a wealth of experience spanning over 20 years in the Health and Public Service Sectors; having worked in the capacity of the Senior Technical Adviser (Health Sector) in the Officer of the Millennium Development Goals under the Presidency and as National Health Adviser for the Bamako Initiative Programme of the Petroleum Trust Fund amongst other top management positions.

Dr. Ado Muhammad is a former Staff of previous National Programme on Immunization (NPI) which was integrated into the NPHCDA in 2007. Since joining the NPHCDA; Dr Ado has lead the national efforts to interrupt and eradicate the wild polio virus resulting in Nigeria interrupting the transmission of the wild polio virus in July 2015. In collaboration with various Partners, Dr Ado has led numerous innovation transformations in the delivery of PHC services in Nigeria; particularly in the areas of Vaccine Logistics and implementation of an Accountability Framework for Immunization. He was responsible for guiding the implementation of the SURE-P MCH programme which expands on the midwifery service scheme and incorporates a demand mechanism through conditional cash transfers. In line with the principle of Primary Health Care Under One Roof (PHCUOR), Dr Ado leadership has facilitated over 80% of States in Nigeria to establish State Primary Health Care Development Agencies and amongst other efforts at ensuring integration, decentralization and evidence based decision making at PHC level through a PHC Review Process. Dr. Ado J.G. Muhammad is a graduate of the School of Medicine, University of Ilorin Nigeria and also possesses a Masters in Public Health from University of Wales, United Kingdom; amongst other professional certification. He is happily married with children.

Esther Ndichu
UPS
Director, Humanitarian Supply Chain

Esther Ndichu

Esther Ndichu is based in Brussels and oversees the UPS Foundation’s global humanitarian engagements, managing solutions, operations, and support resources for external partners as they prepare for and respond to disasters. She has held a range of positions at her 10 years at UPS, from air network planning to industrial engineering and revenue management. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Esther understands first-hand some of the challenges the humanitarian organizations face when delivering aid and relief, which has grown into a vested interest in seeing UPS expand into Africa and the humanitarian sector. She is fluent in English, Swahili, and knowledge of French and holds a bachelor’s in international relations from the College of Wooster in Ohio and an MBA from the American Intercontinental University in Atlanta.

Jens Pederson
Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) South Africa
Humanitarian Policy Adviser

Jens Pederson

In Jens’ current role as Humanitarian Policy Adviser at MSF, he focus emergencies and conducts analyses, advocacy and negotiation, predominantly with a focus on Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and African conflict settings. Jens has worked in a number of roles related to program coordination and emergency management with MSF, in South Africa, Sudan South Sudan, Sierra Leone, ZImbabwe and India, and worked as hospital coordinator in Monrovia, Liberia, during the Ebola outbreak in 2014. He has published a number of papers on humanitarian policy and conflicts focusing on these regions. Jens is a trained nurse and holds an MSc in Humanitarian Studies from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Jorge Quevedo
Clinton Health Access Initiative- South Africa
Acting Country Director

Jorge Quevedo

Jorge Quevedo is the Acting Country Director of CHAI in South Africa. He has over 17 years in managerial experience in both private and public sectors. Between 2007 and 2013 Mr. Quevedo worked for CHAI Mozambique providing programmatic support and strategic advise to the government of Mozambique in the scale up of pediatric ART, mother-child health, supply chain, medical laboratory capacity, public-private partnerships, decentralization of services to rural sites. For many of these areas, CHAI was the sector-wide lead and served as nexus between billateral/multilateral agencies and the government. Since 2013 Mr. Quevedo has led CHAI South Africa which has a portfolio of highly technical and complex programs, ranging from health financing, to efficiency identification and realization, supply chain, laboratory services and service delvery optimization. South Africa has the largest HIV program in the world. Prior to joining CHAI in 2007, Mr. Quevedo worked in the Finance and Technology sector as a senior executive and partner for over 9 years. 

Mallika Raghavan
Last Mile Health
Community Health Systems Workforce Manager

Mallika Raghavan

Mallika currently supports the oversight of community health systems design with Last Mile Health, driving workforce and operational innovations to deliver and design essential health services in remote Liberia in collaboration with the Liberia Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. Prior to working with Last Mile Health, she served as a Senior Technical Advisor with The Carter Center- South Sudan Guinea Worm Eradication Programme where she led and designed community based surveillance systems and assessments along the borders of South Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya. Additionally, Mallika supported Disaster Risk Reduction programming in Bihar, India with Project Concern International, evaluating the effects of chronic versus acute disaster interventions and led the evaluation of community driven response systems. She has also worked on partnerships and program development for the American India Foundation, Global Partnerships Forum, The Fund for Public Health and Mount Sinai Hospital. Mallika holds a B.A in Political Science from Bates College and an MPH from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Adrian Ristow
The Coca-Cola Company
Director, Project Last Mile

Adrian Ristow

Adrian is a “social intrapreneur,” passionate about finding ways to better leverage business solutions to address key development challenges. He currently directs Project Last Mile for the Coca-Cola Company and is based in South Africa.  Project Last Mile is a public-private partnership between Coca-Cola, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID that aims to leverage key capabilities of the Coca-Cola System to improve the availability of essential medicines.  To date work has been completed with Ministries of Health in in Tanzania and Ghana and the partnership has committed to expand to an additional eight countries over the next five years.  Specifically the program applies Coca-Cola’s logistic, supply chain, distribution and marketing expertise to help African governments maximize the ability to get critical medicines and medical supplies the “last mile” to those who need it most in hard-to-reach communities in Africa.

Adrian has also worked on a number of other projects with Coca-Cola, including 9 years in public affairs and communications at an African-based bottler called Coca-Cola SABCO. Adrian was previously the deputy director of Business Action for African and remains involved in a variety of initiatives to leverage business strategy for social equality and economic development in Africa. Adrian earned a Bachelor of Commerce and Masters in Commerce Management from Rhodes University in South Africa, where he later taught as a lecturer for 3 years in the Department of Management.

Edwin Romeijn
Georgia Institute of Technology
Chair, Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering

Edwin Romeijn

Dr. Romeijn is responsible for overseeing the nation’s largest industrial and systems engineering program, which has consistently been ranked No. 1 in both graduate and undergraduate education by the U.S. News & World Reports. His areas of expertise include optimization theory and applications. His recent research activities deal with issues arising in radiation therapy treatment planning and supply chain management. In radiation therapy treatment planning, his main goal has been to develop new models and algorithms for efficiently determining effective treatment plans for cancer patients who are treated using radiation therapy, and treatment schedules for radiation therapy clinics. In supply chain optimization, his main interests are in the integrated optimization of production, inventory, and transportation processes, in particular in the presence of demand flexibility, limited resources, perishability, and uncertainty. Dr. Romeijn has published numerous peer reviewed articles and previously served as program director for the Manufacturing Enterprise Systems, Service Enterprise Systems, and Operations Research programs at the National Science Foundation, and as professor and Richard C. Wilson Faculty Scholar in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. Dr. Romeijn received his M.S. in econometrics and Ph.D. in operations research from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1988 and 1992, respectively.

David Sarley
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Senior Program Officer, Vaccine and Integrated Delivery

David Sarley

David Sarley is a Senior Program Officer for Vaccines and Integrated Delivery at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, managing healthcare supply chain investments in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda and Benin. David previously worked at John Snow Inc. (JSI) on the USAID| DELIVER PROJECT as the Director of the DELIVER Public Health Task Order to improve the availability of health products in countries supported by USAID through support to in-country systems strengthening, global advocacy and direct procurement.

David first worked in supply chain in Manufacturing Finance at Ford Motor Company’s European HQ in England, undertaking a management study of the impact of product complexity on supply chain costs. He then took up a teaching and economic advisory position with Voluntary Service Overseas in Grenada. He then spent 16 years as an economic consultant on health financing, trade policy reform, transport and industrial development in over 70 countries specializing in economic modeling. David is is a graduate of Hull and Southampton Universities in the UK with a BSc (Econ) and PostGraduate Diploma in Econometrics. He is a mad soccer fan and amateur comedian and white board artist.

Anke Schaffranek
Lioness Consulting
Strategic Advisor

Anke Schaffranek

Anke Schaffranek is originally from Germany and has worked for Roche Diagnostics across a number of countries in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa setting up various projects across the healthcare spectrum with particular emphasis on Diabetes Care. After 9 years working for Roche, she decided to start her own business, currently working as international healthcare advisor to one of the largest Swiss pharmaceutical companies, redesign the distribution chain for Sub-­?Saharan Africa for a certain product line and to a South African primary healthcare group that is expanding in Africa. Her heart and her passion are with business model innovation, disruptive approaches and entrepreneurship in the so-­?called non-­?premium private primary health care sector in frontier and emerging markets. Her vision is to transfer this currently untapped sector into a business area of high interest for all different market players and support its transformation into the digital age and the internet of things.

Moz Siddiqui
GAVI- The Vaccine Alliance
Manager, Innovative Finance and Private Sector Partnerships

Moz Siddiqui
Moz Siddiqui is based in Geneva and works in the Global Operational Partnerships team at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.  Moz works directly with the private sector to adapt it's skills, technologies, and expertise in order to build meaningful partnerships that address critical bottlenecks in the immunisation supply chain.  He manages a portfolio of projects including the UPS Foundation and International Federation of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers (Foundation), which seek to address immunisation supply chain management capacity development challenges.
For the past 10 years, Moz has worked across the public and private sectors, including Accenture, and Thomson Reuters , the Yunus Centre in Bangladesh, and maternal health projects in Pakistan.  Moz holds a MSc in Global Health and Development, University College London, Post-Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, and LLB from SOAS, University of London.  

Karen Smilowitz
Northwestern University
Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences

Karen Smilowitz

Dr. Smilowitz studies modeling and solution approaches for logistics and transportation systems.  She has developed innovative modeling and solution techniques for these complex systems in both commercial and non-profit applications, working with transportation providers, logistics specialists and a range of non-profit organizations.  She is currently leading the Northwestern Initiative on Humanitarian and Non-Profit Logistics with fellow IEMS faculty member Irina Dolinskaya. Dr. Smilowitz has worked on several projects in the area of operational improvement in community-based health care.  Community-based operations research is the application of decision models to social issues of a local nature. The goal of this field is to design policies and tactics that have the potential to improve individual life outcomes and neighborhood-level outcomes by addressing welfare, equity and administrative efficiency simultaneously.

Gavin Steel
South African National Department of Health
Chief Director

Gavin Steel

Julie Swann
Georgia Institute of Technology
Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Co-director, Center for Health & Humanitarian Systems

Julie Swann

Dr. Swann’s current research interests include applications of economics and optimization to healthcare policy, which recently led her to co-founded the Health Analytics Group at Georgia Tech. Her research interests in supply chains and health systems intersect in her work to improve planning and response to humanitarian crises. In addition to her university experience, Dr. Swann participated in several research projects at General Motors and IBM, focusing on pricing in different industries. At General Motors, Dr. Swann developed a tool integrating pricing, production and distribution of vehicles while meeting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements. At IBM, she explored pricing models for efficient bandwidth allocation. Dr. Swann received her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1996 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University in 1998 and 2001, respectively.

Sue Tafeni
Stop Stock Outs
Registered Nurse

Sue  Tafeni

Sue Tafeni is a Registered Nurse with a Health Sciences undergraduate degree and postgraduate studies include an MBA in International Business. She migrated to the UK from Zimbabwe, 24 years ago and studied and worked in the UK, for the Private sector and NHS in various clinical nursing roles and in the last 5 years in project management roles centred around improving quality and standards in patient care and facility service improvement . Recently, Sue returned to Southern Africa and took on the Stop Stockout Project role adding to previous project experience, and she is excited about the impact its success will have on patients nationally.

Karin Turner
Broadreach Healthcare
Director of Business Development

Karin Turner

Ms. Karin Kanewske Turner is the Global Health/Business Development Director at BroadReach Healthcare. She leads the teams and programs in Zambia, Kenya and other African for BroadReach, as well as the point person for supply chain and health systems technical coordination. Karin has extensive experience in creating managing and implementing PEPFAR programs throughout Africa. She worked over 12 years for USAID, most recently as the Health Systems Strengthening Team Lead in Mozambique. She has worked with USAID and CDC teams in 14 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean from the Regional HIVAIDS Program for Southern African.

Karin is considered an innovator in USG program implementation and technical assistance for health systems strengthening across integrated service delivery platforms and initiatives. She has managed USG PEPFAR, PMI and MCH partner portfolios of totalling over $350 million dollars. Karin has advised and collaborated with Ministries of Health in progressing health financing, supply chain management, human resources, planning, integrated health service delivery, public private partnerships and coordination of operations including leading innovations to fund directly to the host-country. Prior to USG, Karin gained vast experience in the World Bank, UN and private foundations as advisor across the public and private health sector in HIV, Chronic Disease Care, Environmental Health and Research. Karin earned her Bachelor degree in Molecular Biology from University of Colorado at Boulder and her Masters in International Public Health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Abre Van Buuren
Imperial Health Sciences
Training Manager - Africa Supply Chain Academy

Abre Van Buuren

Abré is a registered learning and development practitioner with 12 years’ experience. He is currently a Training Manager at the African Supply Chain Academy in Pretoria with Imperial Health Sciences which includes designing and developing the supply chain modules for the program, facilitating trainings for SC performance improvement, warehouse operations management and Warehouse-in-a-Box™. Previously, Abré was the learning and development manager for RTT in Johannesburg and for UTi South Africa in Pretoria where he honed skills including guiding, motivating, and mentoring others in addition to excellent planning skills, and identifying and addressing learning and development needs and obstacles in the supply chain environment. 

Luk Van Wassenhove
INSEAD
Academic Director, Humanitarian Research Group

Luk Van Wassenhove

Luk Van Wassenhove  currently leads the Humanitarian Research Group at INSEAD and holds the Henry Ford Chair of Manufacturing. He created the INSEAD Social Innovation Centre and acted as academic director until September 2010. His recent research is focused on closed-loop supply chains (product take-back and end-of-life issues) and on disaster management (humanitarian logistics). He is senior editor for Manufacturing and Service Operations Management and departmental editor for Production and Operations Management. He publishes regularly in Management Science, Production and Operations Management, and many other academic as well as management journals (like Harvard Business Review, and California Management Review).

He is the author of many award-winning teaching cases and regularly consults for major international corporations. In 2005, Professor Van Wassenhove was elected Fellow of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS). In 2006, he was the recipient of the EURO Gold Medal for outstanding academic achievement. In 2009 he was elected Distinguished Fellow of the Manufacturing and Services Operations Management Society (MSOM). In 2013 he became Honorary Fellow of the European Operations Management Association (EUROMA). He is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences. 

John Vorster
Mezzanineware
COO

John Vorster

John Vorster is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Mezzanine, a subsidiary of Vodacom deploying mobile business solutions in the Health, Agriculture and Education industries. John is responsible for the operational teams that design, develop and deploy software systems for public and private entities, including multi-national clients of Vodafone Global Enterprise. Prior to his career at Mezzanine, John was the COO at PSG Online Securities, the top rated online stockbroker in South Africa. John qualified with a BA LLB Degree from Stellenbosch University. 

Grace Waiharo
Phillips Healthcare Services, Ltd
Head of Operations

Grace Waiharo

Dr. Grace Waiharo is the Head of Operations for Phillips Healthcare Services Limited (PHSL). She is a registered pharmacist with over 19 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. At PHSL, she is responsible for implementing the company’s strategic plan and reports to the Board of Directors. Over the last 6 years she has been responsible for managing the supply chain services for the a multi-million dollar PEPFAR funded USAID | Kenya Pharma Project that has procured, warehoused and distributed medicines for HIV and opportunistic infections worth about USD 500 million and reaching about 420,000 patients with HIV medicines and more than 830,000 patients on care with medicines for opportunistic infections. All these patients are poor Kenyans who could not afford to buy medicines and therefore relied on the efficient PEPFAR supported supply chain to deliver their crucial treatments on time. PHSL also managed a USAID nutrition and HIV program that provided nutrition commodities to HIV patients in Kenya.

PHSL is also the corporate social investment arm of the Phillips Pharma Group and currently implements several projects that target the population at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). Through establishing strategic partnerships, Grace ensures that crucial treatments and health solutions are accessible and affordable to the BoP. Through such partnerships, PHSL currently distributes ORS-Zinc kits for management of diarrhea in children under the age of 5 years as well as micro nutrient powder (MNP) for home fortification. She also believes in women empowerment and by design 75% of her management team at PHSL is composed of women.

Frank Welvaert
Johnson & Johnson
Director, Corporate Social Responsibility, Europe, Middle East and North Africa (EMEA), Managing Director of the Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust

Frank Welvaert

Frank’s responsibilities include the coordination of the CSR activities for the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies in the EMEA region. He also serves as managing director of the Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust (EMEA), the operational CSR body based in Edinburgh (UK) with a branch in Dubai (UAE).

Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson in 1997, he was senior advisor to the management board of the King Baudouin Foundation (Belgium), with responsibilities such as fundraising, legal and fiscal, corporate relations and communication. This included the setup and development of the King Baudouin Foundation U.S. in 1996. He serves as a member of the supervisory board of the European Academy for Business in Society, an international organisation of business schools and universities based in Brussels. From 2002 until 2008 he was chairman of the Board of CSR Europe, the European business network on corporate social responsibility. He also served as a member of the Governing Council of the European Foundation Center and the Corporate Committee of the U.S. Council of Foundations.

Frank is a frequent speaker at international conferences and a guest lecturer at several business schools on the topic of CSR. He received  Masters Degree in Modern History at Ghent University (Belgium) where he specialised in economic development of the tourist industry.

Alonzo Wind
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Southern Africa Deputy Mission Director

Alonzo Wind

Alonzo Wind joined USAID/Southern Africa as Deputy Mission Director in December 2014. He is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Counselor (FE-OC) and has served as USAID’s Deputy Mission Director in Iraq from October 2013 to November 2014. Since September 2011 and until his Deputy Mission Director assignment he served in the Africa Bureau as Regional Advisor and de-facto Deputy Office Director for Southern Africa Affairs, and then Acting Office Director.

Most recently in the field, Mr. Wind served as the Focused Stabilization Office Director in Baghdad and USAID representative for the PRT Salah Ad Din in northern Iraq, and then as the senior development officer at a base in Kandahar, Afghanistan until mid-August 2011. He was given the Commander’s Award for Civilian Service by the U.S. Army. Prior to his CPC assignments, Mr. Wind served ten years overseas as the Supervisory General Development Officer with USAID missions in Nigeria, Angola and Nicaragua, directing and guiding offices and U.S. Government-funded programs in health, HIV/AIDS, education, governance, and social sector reform.

Mr. Wind spent about 19 years mostly in developing countries overseas, working with private contractors and nonprofit development organizations such as Save the Children Alliance (in London, UK), CARE in Peru, Dominican Republic, Bolivia and Ecuador. He also spent two years at the USAID Mission in Lima Peru as a U.S. PSC Program Coordinator from 1990-1992. His work overseas started with his service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador (1980-82). Mr. Wind studied at the University of Chicago and has a Bachelor’s in Political Science and a Master’s of Science in Public Health Management.

York Zucchi
0712
Founder and CEO

York Zucchi

York Zucchi is a Swiss investor and entrepreneur in Africa. He quit Goldman Sachs in 2007 to move to South Africa to be involved in the primary healthcare sector where is working on numerous initiatives, from clinic management systems to writing the world’s first book about the business of primary healthcare. He is passionate about the potential that a marriage between primary healthcare and entrepreneurship can have to the sustainability of healthcare and the continuity of accessible and affordable non premium private care. He recently did a TEDx talk on the opportunity that is primary healthcare in Africa, and he has been published in several other magazines on healthcare topics and Africa including “African Business Magazine,” eHealthNews, and Entrepreneurship Magazine.

Additional speaker information to come