Speakers

2020 Conference Keynotes and Panelist biographies are listed below. 

Recordings of Keynotes Addresses have been made public to visitors and can be accessed Here

View The Agenda

Keynote

Anuradha Gupta
Deputy Chief Executive Officer
Gavi
Anuradha Gupta

Anuradha Gupta is Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Since joining Gavi in 2015, Anuradha has led efforts to put equity and gender at the centre of Gavi’s programmatic planning and to tailor support to countries within Gavi’s strategy. She has also driven efforts to create a new model of country-level Alliance support, through the establishment of the partners’ engagement framework (PEF). At the same time, Anuradha has helped to improve country ownership and leadership of Gavi-supported programmes while enhancing accountability for results. In 2019, Gavi received the prestigious Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award for providing sustained access to childhood vaccines in the world’s poorest countries, saving millions of lives and highlighting the power of immunisation to prevent diseases.

Prior to Gavi, Anuradha served as Mission Director of the National Health Mission of India, where she ran the largest – and possibly most complex – public health programme in the world with an annual budget of US$ 3.5 billion. A passionate and influential advocate of women, young girls and children, Anuradha played a leading role in India’s efforts to eradicate polio transmission, reduce maternal and child mortality and revitalise primary health care.

Anuradha has contributed towards a number of important global health initiatives. She served as a member of the Steering Committee for Child Survival Call to Action, co-chaired the Stakeholder Group for the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning and was a member of the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) Reference Group. Anuradha served as Co-Chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH) and is currently a member of the PMNCH Board. She also played a role in shaping the Global Financing Facility (GFF) and is a member of the GFF Investors Group. From 2015-2018, Anuradha served on the Merck for Mothers Advisory Board.

Anuradha holds an MBA from the University of Wollongong in Australia and received executive education from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Stanford Graduate School of Business and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. In 2015, she was named one of “300 Women Leaders in Global Health” by the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

Esperanza Martinez
Head of Health Unit Assistance Program
ICRC

Dr. Esperanza Martinez is the Head of Health for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). She is responsible for overseeing the delivery of humanitarian health services to populations affected by war and violence in more than 80 countries around the world. 

She is a medical doctor and general surgeon, trained in Colombia, and specialized in International Public Health and Health Management in Australia. Her experience includes over ten years of field work in conflict-affected countries as well as work with UN agencies, government bodies and the private sector. 

Ed Martinez
President
The UPS Foundation
Ed Martinez

The UPS Foundation leads the global citizenship programs and initiatives for UPS. As President, Ed Martinez is responsible for the operations and management of its global philanthropic, employee engagement and corporate relations programs which invested in over 4,300 organizations and communities across 170 countries in 2019. In addition to his role as President of The UPS Foundation, Martinez also serves as the UPS Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer with responsibilities for the advancement of diversity and inclusion programs which empower over half a million UPS employees worldwide including its suppliers, customers and communities at the company. 

Martinez served as corporate legal counsel in the UPS Legal Department until 2007, where his legal practice included commercial transactions, intellectual property and information technology matters, as well as civil litigation. Prior to assuming the position as President, he served as Director of Philanthropy and Corporate Relations for The UPS Foundation. 

Mr. Martinez joined UPS in 1976, as a package handler in UPS’s South Florida operation where he subsequently entered the management ranks within the company’s operations and the Industrial Engineering functions. Martinez later held senior management positions in the areas of Corporate Accounting and Finance, Risk Management, and Acquisitions. In these capacities, he also served UPS’s subsidiaries and International Region. 

In addition to his corporate responsibilities, Martinez served as former Chairperson of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Agenda Council on Humanitarian Response. Currently he serves on the WEF’s Managing the Risk and Impact of Future Epidemics Steering Committee. Martinez also serves on the UN Global Logistics Cluster’s Logistics Emergency Team Steering Council and on the executive committees of the United Nations Office for Coordination of Coordination Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Connecting Business Initiative and the Global Health Security Agenda’s Private Sector Round Table. Martinez recently joined the Global Humanitarian Action Executive Council under the leadership of the UN Secretary-General’s Humanitarian Envoy and the Global Advisory Board of the UN Global Executive Leadership Initiative. Martinez is a member of the World Food Programme USA Board of Directors. 

Martinez serves as Principal, representing UPS on the Corporate Board of Advisors for UnidosUS organization as well as member of the Points of Light Institutes’ Corporate Service Council. Martinez also serves as Advisor to the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE). Martinez is former co-chair and appointee by the National Academy of Science of its national program, Resilient America. Martinez serves on the International Leadership Board of UK Business in The Community organization. Martinez serves on the Executive Committee of IMPACT 2030 a business led coalition to advance the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Martinez is a member of the Clemson University Corporate Chief Diversity Officer Advisory Board and a member of the Board of Directors for the Woodruff Art Center of Georgia. 

Born in Havana, Cuba, Martinez immigrated to the United States with his family in 1960. He has lived in Atlanta since 1992, with his wife and three children. 

Martinez holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Accounting from the University of Miami, Florida and a Juris Doctor degree from the Nova Southeastern University Law School. A member of the American Bar Association, he is also a member of the Florida Bar. 

Michelle Nunn
President & CEO
CARE USA
Michelle Nunn

Since July 2015, Michelle Nunn has been president and CEO of CARE USA, a leading humanitarian organization that fights global poverty and provides lifesaving assistance in emergencies. In the last fiscal year, CARE worked in 100 countries and directly reached nearly 70 million people.

Nunn took the helm of CARE in 2015 and has spearheaded an ambitious strategy to reach 200 million of the world’s most vulnerable people by 2020. Under Nunn’s leadership, CARE has invested in innovative new programs and partnerships with private corporations and other nonprofits to increase its impact. Since assuming leadership of CARE, Nunn has set a goal of increasing CARE’s micro-savings program from 7 million participants to 60 million participants by 2028.

Before joining CARE, Nunn had built an illustrious career of civic and public service as a social entrepreneur, a nonprofit CEO, and a candidate for the U.S. Senate. She co-founded the volunteer-mobilization organization Hands On Atlanta, and expanded it from a single entity to a national network of more than 50 affiliates. Nunn oversaw that group’s merger with Points of Light, creating the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service, with affiliates across the globe engaging more than 70,000 corporations and nonprofit organizations. Nunn served as Points of Light CEO from 2007 to 2013.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia, Nunn majored in history with a minor in religion and earned her Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She also received a Kellogg Fellowship to study faith and social justice in more than a dozen countries, from Peru to Namibia to Jordan.

Nunn currently lives in Atlanta with her husband, Ron Martin, and their two children, Vinson and Elizabeth.

Panelists

Samira Asma
Assistant Director General, Division of Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact
World Health Organization
Samira Asma

Dr Samira Asma is the Assistant Director General for Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact at the World Health Organization where she leads WHO’s efforts to use timely, reliable and actionable data to drive progress towards the Triple Billion targets[1] and SDGs. Samira has more than 25 years’ experience developing partnerships and leading public health programmes and policies. Prior to joining WHO, Samira served in leadership positions at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she established global programmes on tobacco control, noncommunicable diseases, environmental health and injuries. Samira is internationally recognized for establishing global surveillance systems to drive public policy and has contributed to more than 100 publications, books and policy papers. 

[1] One billion more people benefitting from universal health coverage, one billion more people better protected from health emergencies, and one billion more people enjoying better health and well-being

Ruth Bechtel
Country Director, Mozambique
VillageReach
Ruth Bechtel

Ruth Bechtel is an expert on health systems strengthening and is the Mozambique Country Director at VillageReach.  She is responsible for driving the strategic vision for all country programs and serves as a key partner to the government, private sector and partner organizations.

Ruth brings health care delivery expertise with a last mile perspective to designing, implementing, and monitoring development programs. She also brings a deep knowledge of linking local community-level challenges to national and above national policy debates and advocacy.

Ruth has overseen the national scaling of VillageReach’s flagship, Next-Generation Supply Chain, program in Mozambique, including the integration of private sector capacity in support of the government’s strategic supply chain plan. She also provides leadership for the program that has been replicated across additional countries, such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Liberia.

Prior to joining VillageReach, Ruth worked with the Vanderbilt University and the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health as well as with Oxfam Great Britain and Helvetas. Ruth has a MSc in Managing Rural Change from the University of London, Imperial College.

Kathy Fulton
Executive Director
American Logistics Aid Network
Kathy Fulton

Kathy Fulton is Executive Director for American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). She leads the organization in delivering logistics information, services, and equipment to ensure communities have continuity of nourishment, hydration, and medical care during crisis.

Ms. Fulton’s passion is the intersection of supply chain and emergency management, focusing on the critical role logistics and supply chain professionals play in disaster relief. She serves on national workgroups focused on efficient coordination of logistics activities during disaster and was a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine consensus committee on “Strengthening Post-Hurricane Supply Chain Resilience.”

Preceding her work with ALAN, Fulton was Senior Manager of Information Technology Services at Saddle Creek Logistics Services where she led IT infrastructure implementation and support, corporate systems, and business continuity planning.

Ms. Fulton holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Northwestern State University of Louisiana and Master’s degrees in Business Administration (concentration in Supply Chain Management) and Management Information Systems from the University of South Florida.

Alex Gachoud
Cash & Markets Specialist
International Committee of the Red Cross
Alex Gachoud

• Started working with the ICRC 1.5 year ago as the Cash & Markets specialist with the Economic Security Unit based at Geneva HQ.

• First time working within the Movement, but collaborated with National Societies in his previous roles with WFP, Action Contre la Faim, Oxfam and UNHCR.

• Before joining the ICRC, Alex was working at UNHCR HQ as global Cash & Markets advisor, then deployed to Latin America to support the Venezuela regional migration crisis.

• Alex is a Food Security and Disaster Risk Reduction specialist with 12 years of experience in humanitarian emergencies and recovery contexts, including ten years trying to understand better markets dynamics in crisis contexts and identify opportunities for Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA).

• His current role with the ICRC consists of promoting and supporting CVA and market support interventions in all the ICRC Delegations with a particular focus on West Africa and the Middle East, where he regularly travels to provide in-country support to ICRC programmes and to facilitate training for Movement staff.

Abdoulaye Hamidou
West and Central Africa Capacity Building Lead
Global Market Thematic Lead
The Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP)
Abdoulaye Hamidou

Abdoulaye is the capacity building lead for West and Central Africa and the global market thematic lead for the Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP). He has twenty years of professional experience, including fifteen dedicated to development and humanitarian actions. He has worked with various structures: public service, international cooperation agency, national and international non-governmental organizations. During his professional career Abdoulaye specialized in food security, livelihoods, networking, influencing and capacity building. Since he joined the CaLP team in December 2016, he has been in charge of strengthening humanitarian actors’ capacity and providing technical support in terms of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) in priority countries across the west and central Africa region. He is strongly contributing to develop more expertise on cash and voucher assistance across the region through the CaLP’s Building Individual Expertise Programme (BIEP) implemented since 2017. Abdoulaye has played a key role in supporting the process of the definition of the Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB) conducted by the cash working groups in various countries across the region.

Helene Juillard
Director
Key Aid Consulting
Helene Juillard

Helene has been working as an evaluator in the humanitarian sector for the past decade with a specific focus on cash and market based programming. She heads Key Aid’s work on cash and market-based programming, as well as capacity building. She has supported the institutionalisation of cash and market-based programming for UNDP, UNHCR, IRC, Save the Children, CARE, Oxfam and World Vision, among others. She has also authored several related guidance documents, including the CaLP Programme Quality Toolbox and the PCMA guidance, and is involved in the Sphere Standards revision. She is a member of the CaLP Technical Advisory Group and the Market in Crisis Board of Directors. Helene also regularly designs and trains humanitarian practitioners on cash and market-based programming. She is a lecturer with Manchester University and Sciences Po Paris.

Lloyd Mbasela
Executive Director
Industrial Training Centre
Lloyd Mbasela

Lloyd Mbasela is the Executive Director for Industrial Training Centre (ITC) which is the principal provider of professional driver training in Zambia. Lloyd has 25 years’ experience in industrial related trainings including professional driver training and engineering. Lloyd has worked as a lecturer in Automotive Engineering under the Zambian Ministry of Higher Education, having trained in Japan. Lloyd is an experienced technical and vocational trainer and has worked with the likes of GIZ in designing and developing training programmes appropriate to the needs of the industrial sector.

The Industrial Training Centre provides transport related training to a wide range of groups and has taken the lead in developing national standards and developing the capacity of its own trainers. These trainers have also supported programmes in Sierra Leone and Uganda.

Jenny Parker
Vice President, Infectious Disease Programs
CDC Foundation
Jenny Parker

Jenny Parker joined the CDC Foundation in August 2019 and currently serves as the Vice President for Infectious Disease Programs. In this role she provides overall leadership and support for the domestic and global infectious diseases programs. In addition, she works across CDC Foundation departments to identify process improvement and staff development opportunities for overall program effectiveness. Prior to her position with the CDC Foundation, she worked for 25 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a variety of roles. From 2016 through 2019, she worked in the CDC Chief of Staff’s office as the CDC senior advisor to the CDC Foundation. She also served as the deputy director for management and overseas operations in CDC’s Center for Global Health, overseeing a multi-billion dollar budget supporting 2,800 staff in over 60 countries. In 2016 she received the federal government’s prestigious Presidential Rank Award for her meritorious service during the West Africa Ebola outbreak. Jenny brings with her extensive global health management and operations experience as well as spending seven years implementing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Prior to her work at CDC, Jenny worked with the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services helping children who had experienced abuse and neglect.

Simon Patrick Obi
Executive Director
GreenLight Initiative
Simon Patrick Obi

Simon Patrick Obi is a public safety advocate, a UN Global Road Safety leader, and the Executive Director of GreenLight Initiative.

He is a graduate member of the Nigeria Institute of Management and has undergone public management training with the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) Regional Leadership Centre. He has acquired a graduate diploma in Management and professional training in Business Development, Project Management, and another in Health; Safety & Environment. Prior to that, he acquired a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Chemistry from Anambra State University Uli. Simon is an alumnus of the U.S government sponsored Young Africa Leaders Initiative and the International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP), USA.

Simon is also known in media circles. He produces and broadcasts the well-known 45-minute weekly "Drive to Live" road safety radio program featured on the Nigerian Armed Forces Radio 107.7 FM, reaching 8 Nigerian states with a listenership of over 72,000 people each month. In addition, he is the creator of the regularly scheduled "#Drive2Live" road safety Twitter chat, which he hosts with the Nigeria Federal Road Safety Corps, a federal government agency responsible for road safety enforcement in Nigeria. Each year Simon organizes the annual You & Road Safety awareness and 5km walk in Nigeria to commemorate World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. He uses such occasions to highlight the huge impact of road traffic deaths and injuries on families, economy, and communities and the importance of good road safety laws and enforcement.

 

 

Suvi Rautio
Deputy Director – Supply Chain
Supply Division, UNICEF
Suvi Rautio

Suvi Rautio is currently working as Deputy Director, Supply Chain in UNICEF Supply Division. She oversees the normative function, warehousing and international transport, emergency preparedness and response, quality assurance and strengthening of government supply chain systems.  Previously, she served as Chief of Supply and Procurement in UNICEF India, and prior to that as UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Chief of Supply, responsible for supporting 21 countries.  Furthermore she has held several positions in UNICEF Supply Division including Chief of Procurement Services and Team leader of HIV/AIDS. She has also worked in UNICEF Turkey and Benin country offices. Before joining UNICEF, she worked in the private sector in Taiwan and Hong Kong and with the International Labour Organization in Fiji.

Claire Louise Travers
Independent Consultant and Co-Founder, Local Procurement Learning Partnership
Global Impact Lead
Field Ready
Claire Louise Travers

Claire Louise Travers has over eight years of experience in assessing and ensuring the monitoring, evaluation, and accountability of emergency relief and response in over 20 countries worldwide, employing both community-based participatory approaches and ethical systems overview. As an educator, researcher and technical lead, Claire has worked at multiple stages of disaster response management, from implementation to end-line evaluation.

As the co-founder of the Local Procurement Learning Partnership, Claire is a firm proponent of the localization agenda. Claire is currently researching the future of market-aligned NFI provision, and is therefore is proficient in GIS mapping and supply chain systems review. The Local Procurement Learning Partnership is an MSP designed to improve and increase the use of local procurement in aid response programming.

In her role at Field Ready, Claire oversees all MEAL across more than 12 countries and leading on trailing a range of practical solutions for the monitoring and evaluation of makerspaces, methods of quality assurance for localized manufacturing and assessments of local capacity and market systems. Field Ready is an INGO who promote the manufacture of humanitarian supplies in the field.

As an independent consultant, Claire specializes in impact evaluations of NFI delivery and MIS conception of scaling organizations. Claire Louise Travers holds a dual masters in International Humanitarian Action from the NOHA network in Uppsala Universität Sweden, and in Humanitarian Analysis and Intervention Design from Rijkuniversitet Groningen, a visiting scholarship to SIPA, Columbia University, New York, and a BA in Philosophy and History of Ideas from Cardiff University. You can find more about Claire at www.clairelouisetravers.co.uk.

Stephen A. Vosti
Adjunct Professor
Dept. of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis
Stephen A. Vosti, PhD

Stephen A. Vosti is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Rockefeller Foundation in Brazil. He was a Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, where he managed international research projects aimed at identifying and measuring the effects of changes in land use and land cover on poverty, economic growth and environmental sustainability, and on identifying the roles of public policy in managing these trade-offs/synergies. He was part of an international inter-disciplinary team that developed bioeconomic models to identify policy options for improving water use efficiency at several spatial scales. Vosti currently leads a team comprised of nutritionists, economists, and policy engagement specialists in developing tools to inform the design and management of more cost-effective micronutrient intervention programs and policies in developing countries, with particular focus on Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Senegal. He has also been a technical advisor to the FAQR research team, with particular focus on measures of cost-effectiveness and on the development and use of food aid supply chain optimization models. Vosti has substantial field-based research experience in Bangladesh, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Pakistan.

Dominique Zwinkels
Executive Manager
People that Deliver Initiative
Dominique Zwinkels

Dominique is the Executive Manager of the People that Deliver Initiative (PtD). She is an international development professional with 23 years of experience in managing programs with a focus on health supply chain management, livelihood, food security and nutrition.

Since 2016, Dominique has been responsible for the management and overall performance of PtD, a broad coalition of governments and international, regional and national organizations working together to raise the profile of the health supply chain workforce as a key strategic area of health systems. Prior to PtD, she worked for ten years on the HIV/AIDS supply chain for John Snow International (JSI) at the Partnership for Supply Chain Management (PFSCM), which procured and delivered essential lifesaving medicines and related commodities to HIV/AIDS programs around the world.

Dominique also has experience working with multilateral development agencies; the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the International Finance Corporation. She has both an MBA in International Business Administration and a Master's degree in Nutrition. She is fluent in English, Spanish and Dutch. As a native of The Netherlands and having lived in Latin America (Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela) and Washington, DC, she is now based at UNICEF Supply Division in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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About the Conference Series

The Health & Humanitarian Conference series is organized each year by the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems (CHHS) at Georgia Tech in partnership with INSEAD, MIT, and Northeastern University, with generous support from corporate and other organizational sponsors.

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