The Right Honourable Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia, continue to lead the Independent Panel.
The eight current members bring a breadth of expertise and insights to the Panel’s ongoing work.
Rt Hon. Helen Clark
Former Prime Minister of New Zealand
Former Administrator of UNDP
Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand for three successive terms from 1999–2008. She was the first woman to become Prime Minister following a General Election in New Zealand and the second woman to serve as Prime Minister.
Throughout her tenure as Prime Minister and as a Member of Parliament over 27 years, Helen Clark engaged widely in policy development and advocacy across the international affairs, economic, social, environmental, and cultural spheres. She advocated strongly for a comprehensive programme on sustainability for New Zealand and for tackling the challenges of climate change. She was an active leader of her country’s foreign relations, engaging in a wide range of international issues.
In April 2009, Helen Clark became Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. She was the first woman to lead the organisation, and served two terms there. At the same time, she was Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of all UN funds, programmes, agencies, and departments working on development issues. As Administrator, she led UNDP to be ranked the most transparent global development organisation. She completed her tenure in April 2017.
Prior to entering the New Zealand Parliament, Helen Clark taught in the Political Studies Department of the University of Auckland, from which she earlier graduated with her BA and MA (Hons) degrees.
Helen continues to speak widely and be a strong voice on sustainable development, climate action, gender equality and women’s leadership, peace and justice, and action on non-communicable diseases and on HIV. She serves on a number of advisory boards and commissions, including as Chair of the Board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and Chair of the Board of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health.
H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Former President of Liberia
Nobel Peace Laureate
Internationally known as “Africa’s Iron Lady,” Her Excellency, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a leading promoter of freedom, peace, justice, women’s empowerment, and democratic rule.
As Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state, she led Liberia through reconciliation and recovery following the nation’s decade-long civil war, as well as the Ebola crisis, winning international acclaim for achieving economic, social, and political change.
Following the Ebola epidemic, Madam Sirleaf helped rebuild Liberia’s healthcare system, and launched a national community health assistance program to serve more than 4,000 remote communities. Since stepping down as President, building on lessons learned during the Ebola epidemic, she has become a staunch advocate for community health workers and free primary healthcare, as, among other things, a means to protect against the spreading of infectious diseases.
Madam Sirleaf was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her contribution to “securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women.” She is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the United States’ highest civilian award—for her personal courage and unwavering commitment to expanding freedom and improving the lives of Africans. Other honors include receiving the Grand Croix of the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest public distinction; being named one of Forbes “100 Most Powerful Women in the World”; and being the first woman to receive the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership.
In 2018, she founded the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development (EJS Center), an institution dedicated to advancing and sustaining women’s political and social development on the African continent.
Madam Sirleaf has written widely on financial, development, and human rights issues, and in 2008 she published her critically acclaimed memoir, This Child Will Be Great.
She is the proud mother of four sons and grandmother of 12.
Mauricio Cárdenas
Former Minister of Finance
Economist
Mauricio Cárdenas served as Colombia’s minister of finance and public credit from 2012 to 2018, and is now Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
As finance minister, Cárdenas oversaw a successful adjustment program during the oil shock of 2015-2016. Despite a significant reduction in exports and government revenues, Colombia preserved its investment grade status and was able to achieve remarkable social and economic progress. While in office, Cárdenas led a series of reforms that resulted in a significant expansion in formal employment and foreign investment. He was also responsible of coordinating efforts for Colombia’s successful accession to the OECD.
As finance minister, Cárdenas was Chairman of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and of the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four (G-24). He was chosen by Euromoney, as finance minister of the year in 2015.
Cárdenas became finance minister immediately after serving for about one year as minister of mines and energy. Earlier in his career he was Director of National Planning, Minister of Economic Development, and Minister of Transport.
Cárdenas has twice been the executive director of Fedesarrollo, one of Latin America’s premier economic and social policy think tanks. He has also been a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he led the Latin American Initiative.
Cárdenas holds a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree from the University of the Andes. He is married and has three daughters.
Mark Dybul
Professor, Health Diplomat
Former Head of the Global Fund
The Honorable Mark Dybul, MD, is the Co-Director of the Center for Global Health Practice and Impact and Professor in the Department of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center.
Dr. Dybul has worked on HIV and public health for more than 25 years as a clinician, scientist, teacher, and administrator. He served as the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (2013-2017) and the US Global Coordinator and Ambassador leading the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
After graduating from Georgetown Medical School in Washington D.C., Dr. Dybul joined the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a research fellow under director Dr. Anthony Fauci, where he conducted basic and clinical studies on HIV virology, immunology and treatment optimization, including the first randomized, controlled trial with combination antiretroviral therapy in Africa.
Mark was one of the founding architects in the formation of PEPFAR. After serving as Chief Medical officer, Assistant, Deputy and Acting Director, he was appointed as its leader in 2006, becoming U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, with the rank of Ambassador at the level of an Assistant Secretary of State. He served until early 2009.
Mark has written extensively in scientific and policy literature, he is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has received several Honorary Degrees and awards, including a Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa, from Georgetown University.
Michel Kazatchkine
Professor, Health Diplomat
Former Head of the Global Fund
Professor Michel Kazatchkine has over 35 years of experience in global health as a leading physician, researcher, administrator, advocate, policymaker, and diplomat. He attended medical school in Paris and completed postdoctoral fellowships at St. Mary’s hospital in London and Harvard Medical School. He is Emeritus Professor of Immunology at René Descartes University in Paris and has authored or co-authored over 500 scientific publications.
Professor Kazatchkine has played key roles in various organizations, serving as Director of the national Agency for Research on AIDS in France and French ambassador on HIV/AIDS and communicable diseases. In 2007, Professor Kazatchkine was elected Executive Director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a position in which he served until March 2012.
Between 2012 and 2017, Professor Kazatchkine served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Since 2018, he is the Special Advisor to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He is also Senior Fellow with the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva, and a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
Professor Kazatchkine holds Honorary Degrees from Imperial College, London, the Free University of Brussels, the Catholic University of Louvain and the University of Geneva. He is an Officer of the Légion d’Honneur in France and the recipient of several other national Orders and national/ international awards.
Joanne Liu
Former International President of MSF
Dr. Joanne Liu has served as International President of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from 2013 to 2019. At the helm of MSF, she has been a leading voice on medical humanitarian crises, namely in Ebola outbreak of West Africa, attacks on hospitals and forced displacement crisis and has engaged with world leaders at the highest levels.
Dr. Liu’s role builds on a career of field work with MSF, including over 20 medical– humanitarian field assignments. Dr. Liu trained at McGill University School of Medicine in Montreal. She holds a Fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine from New York University School of Medicine and an International Master’s in Health Leadership, also from McGill University.
Dr. Liu’s operational work has ranged from introducing comprehensive care for survivors of sexual violence, to developing a telemedicine platform for connecting doctors in rural areas with specialists worldwide.
Dr. Liu remains a practicing doctor, both in the field with MSF and also through hospital shifts in her home town of Montreal. She believes strongly in bringing and delivering high-quality, patient-centred care in all medical work contexts.
David Miliband
CEO and President of the International Rescue Committee
The Rt Hon David Miliband is the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. He oversees the agency’s relief and development operations in over 30 countries, its refugee resettlement and assistance programs throughout the United States and the IRC’s advocacy efforts in Washington and other capitals on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable people.
David has had a distinguished political career in the United Kingdom. From 2007 to 2010, he served as the youngest Foreign Secretary in three decades, driving advancements in human rights and representing the United Kingdom throughout the world. His accomplishments have earned him a reputation, in former President Bill Clinton’s words, as “one of the ablest, most creative public servants of our time.” In 2016 David was named one of the World’s Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine and in 2018 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
David is also the author of the book, Rescue: Refugees and the Political Crisis of Our Time. As the son of refugees, David brings a personal commitment to the IRC’s work and to the premise of the book: that we can rescue the dignity and hopes of refugees and displaced people. And if we help them, in the process we will rescue our own values.
Thoraya Obaid
Former Executive Director of UNFPA
Thoraya Obaid of Saudi Arabia, joined the Social and Economic Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), from 1975 – 1998 located first in Lebanon, then Iraq, Jordan and returned to Beirut. She was initially responsible for programmes on women and development and eventually appointed as ESCWA Deputy Executive Secretary.
From 1998 to 2000, she was the Regional Director for Arab States and Europe at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), New York, and from 2001 – 2010 was UNFPA Executive Director/Under-Secretary General. This career meant living in Lebanon from the civil war years up until the Israeli invasion of Lebanon (1975 – 1982) then in Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (1982 – 1990), thus having experience of living in wars and conflict zones and saw their impact on people and countries.
Most recently she has been the Chair of Women 20, one of the Engagement Groups of G20 during the Saudi Arabia G20 Presidency, 2020. She has received many awards, especially King Abdul Aziz Medal, of the first degree, for her international work.
Anders Nordström
Former Ambassador for Global Health at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Anders Nordström is the former Swedish Ambassador for Global Health (2010-23). Between 2020-2021, he was seconded as Head of the Secretariat for The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. At the World Health Organization, he served as Acting Director-General (May 2006 – January 2007) and as Assistant Director General for General Management (2003-2006), and Assistant Director General for Health Systems and Services (2007). He was Head of the WHO Country Office in Sierra Leone (2015-17). As the Interim Executive Director, he established the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as a legal entity in 2002.
He has previously served as board member of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the GAVI Alliance, UNAIDS and the Partnership for Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health and chaired a number of international working groups and processes. He was the Director-General for the Swedish International Agency for Development Cooperation (2007-2010).
Today he is an advisor affiliated with the Karolinska Institute and the Stockholm School of Economics. He is currently a member of the board of the Alliance for Health Systems Research’s, is a member of the NUS-Lancet PRIME Commission, chairs the International Vaccine Institute Global Advisory Group of Experts, and serves on the Virchow Foundation for Global Health Council.
Raj Panjabi
Former White House Senior Director and Special Assistant to the President
Raj Panjabi served in the Biden-Harris Administration (2021-2023). As White House Senior Director and Special Assistant to the President, Panjabi served as the top pandemic and health official at the National Security Council. He played a pivotal role in the largest vaccination campaign in history against COVID-19 and responses to public health crises, including Mpox, Influenza and Ebola. He played a lead role executing the 2022 National Biodefense and American Pandemic Preparedness Plans, coordinating over $12 billion in annual investment across 16 federal agencies in biodefense, including in disease surveillance, diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines and health systems. Panjabi helped oversee implementation of the President’s 2022 Bioeconomy Executive Order, directing federal agencies to drive research and development, streamline regulation, grow manufacturing, and expand markets for biotechnology products, including by leveraging artificial intelligence.
He has held top healthcare executive roles. Leading the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative, he helped launch the world’s first malaria vaccine, create a strategy to prevent 1 billion cases and manage a $800 million enterprise protecting 700 million people across 30 countries. For 14 years he was Co-Founder and CEO of Last Mile Health, an enterprise leveraging digital technology to train thousands of healthcare providers serving millions of people.
Panjabi has served on numerous boards, councils and commissions. One of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and TIME’s 50 Most Influential People in Healthcare, he was twice named to the FORTUNE World’s 50 Greatest Leaders list.