Governance

Executive Board

The Executive Board, Unitaid’s decision-making body, determines the organization’s objectives, monitors progress and approves budgets. The Board is chaired by Celso Amorim, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs for Brazil. Making decisions by consensus, the Executive Board consists of 12 members:

One representative nominated from each of the five founding countries (Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the United Kingdom), and Spain;
One representative of African countries designated by the African Union;
One representative of Asian countries;
Two representatives of relevant civil society networks (nongovernmental organizations and communities living with HIV/AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis);
One representative of the constituency of foundations; and
One representative of the World Health Organization.

Read the Executive Board’s Resolutions and Minutes

Read the Executive Board’s e-Resolutions

Find out more about Unitaid’s Executive Committees

Find out more about Unitaid’s Proposal Review Committee

DOCUMENTS & DOWNLOADS

Unitaid constitution

Board Operating Procedures

Marta Maurás Pérez

Chair

Sarah Boulton

United Kingdom / Vice-Chair

Blair Hanewall

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Maria Nazareth Farani Azevêdo

Brazil

Carla Serazzi

Chile

Kenly Sikwese

Communities living with the diseases

Stéphanie Seydoux

France

Diarmaid McDonald

NGOs

Bjørg Sandkjær

Norway

Hyunjoo OH

Republic of Korea

Lindiwe Makubalo

South Africa

Martín Remón

Spain

Minghui Ren

World Health Organization

Marta Maurás Pérez

Chair of the Executive Board

Marta Maurás Pérez is Chile’s former ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, with extensive multilateral experience in international relations, development and human rights issues. During a long and varied international career she has held posts including director for economic and social affairs under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as well as chief of cabinet to the deputy secretary-general. She was the first woman to serve as Chile’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Ambassador Maurás has also held numerous senior positions with UNICEF, working in Latin America and the Caribbean, New York, Swaziland, Mozambique and Pakistan. She organized UNICEF’s work extending basic health services to women and children in conflict zones and emergency situations. In the course of her work, she also took part in negotiations that led to the liberation of 15 teenage girls abducted by the ELN rebel group in Colombia. A sociologist by training, Ambassador Maurás was named one of the most influential Latin American intellectuals of 2017 by the Spanish media outlet esglobal and the Hay Mujeres experts platform.

Sarah Boulton

Vice-chair of the Executive Board

Sarah Boulton is responsible for UK investments in Unitaid and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. In a previous role, she led the UK Multilateral Aid Review.

Blair S. Hanewall

Representing the constituency of foundations

Blair S. Hanewall, M.B.A., M.P.H. is a Deputy Director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation within the Global Development’s Integrated Delivery program.

She oversees the Interventions, Consumers, and Markets team that focuses on ensuring optimal design, launch and uptake of priority innovations (medicines, diagnostics, vector control, family planning) and healthy market environments that promote secure supply to affordable, quality innovations. She joined the foundation in 2003 and has led projects related to vaccine financing strategies with GAVI, aid effectiveness/policy research, regulatory/quality assurance, and supply chain. Prior to the Foundation, Blair worked in the commercialization team for a biotech developing HIV prevention products and program design for maternal and adolescent programs in Tanzania and Ecuador. Blair earned her B.A. from Duke University and Master’s in Business and Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.

Maria Nazareth Farani Azevêdo

Carla Serazzi

Ambassador Carla Serazzi, a career diplomat, entered the Chilean Foreign Service in 1996 and is currently Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva. As a member of Chilean delegations, she has participated in numerous summits, assemblies, conferences, conventions and negotiations at international and regional levels. She has also been a member of Chilean delegations to the International Court of Justice.

Kenly Sikwese

Representing communities living with the diseases

Kenly Sikwese coordinates the AFROCAB network in Lusaka. He has been a member of several global HIV treatment access processes including WHO treatment guidelines. He co-chairs UNAIDS 90-90-90 Scientific Technical Advisory Committee. Kenly is also regular speaker on widening Africa’s access to the best available HIV treatments.

Stéphanie Seydoux

Stéphanie Seydoux has been appointed French Ambassador for Global health in May 2018. She has served as the head of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Division, assistant to the Director General of Women’s Affairs and social cohesion from 2014 to 2017. Since November 2017, she was in charge of a support mission to the government for the revision of the bioethics law.

After starting her career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Stéphanie Seydoux joined the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) in 2004. From 2007 to 2010, she was head of the department for the promotion of equality at the High commission against discrimination and for equality (HALDE). From 2010 to 2013, she joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as first counsellor, deputy head of post at the French Embassy in Kenya.

Stéphanie SEYDOUX holds a master’s degree in literature from the University of Oxford, a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) and is a former student of the National School of Administration (ENA) – promotion “Léopold Sédar Senghor”

Diarmaid McDonald

Representing nongovernmental organizations

Diarmaid McDonald is Advocacy Manager at STOPAIDS, a UK network of over 70 organisations working on the global AIDS response. He has worked on global AIDS policy, advocacy and campaigning since 2008 and on HIV projects in Tanzania and Ethiopia. He is also lead organiser of Just Treatment, a campaign focused on access to medicines in the UK.

Bjørg Sandkjær

Representing Norway

Ms. Bjørg Sandkjær is a senior adviser in the Section for Global Health at Norad. Before joining Norad in 2011, Ms. Sandkjær worked in the GAVI Alliance Secretariat, and has previously served in the UN Economic Commission for Africa, as well as several NGOs focusing on global health and equity. She has published on AIDS and governance, health diplomacy, and equitable access to health care.

Hyunjoo OH

Representing Asian countries

Lindiwe Makubalo

Representing African countries

Dr. Lindiwe Makubalo (PhD, LSHTM) is the Health Expert at the South African Mission, Geneva. She was previously Chief Director, Epidemiology and Research: Department of Health, WHO Executive Director: Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research and Head of HIV Research, MRC Durban. She has served on numerous WHO technical committees and the MCC and MRC Board, in South Africa.

Martín Remón

Representing Spain

Martín Remón is an Economist (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and career diplomat (since 2000), having served in Ukraine, Canada, Nigeria, Vienna (delegate to the OSCE), Madrid (Head of the OSCE and Council of Europe department), and Geneva (delegate to the WHO and ILO).

Ren Minghui

Representing the World Health Organization

Dr Ren Minghui was appointed WHO Assistant Director-General for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases on 4 January 2016. Prior to that, he was Director-General for International Cooperation in the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China.
Dr Ren received an honorary award by the Russian Federation for his contribution to health cooperation in 2006, and was awarded the “Ordre National du Mérite” by France for his efforts to advance collaboration on the prevention and control of emerging diseases in 2015.