Shiulie Ghosh is an award-winning journalist with a career spanning more than 20 years. She has worked for some of the best known television news broadcasters in the world, such as the BBC, ITV News, and Aljazeera.

Dr. Catharina Boehme, Assistant Director-General of External Relations and Governance, Dr Boehme leads WHO’s strategic engagement in the areas of governance, resource mobilization and partner relations. Her portfolio includes providing secretariat support for the World Health Assembly and the WHO Executive Board, along with intergovernmental processes mandated by WHO governing bodies, including those that relate to governance reform and sustainable financing. She oversees WHO’s coordinated resource mobilization and donor relations and Organization-wide efforts to improve the predictability, flexibility and sustainability of WHO financing. Dr Boehme is also responsible for engaging WHO in multilateral and multisectoral partnerships for advancing global health, including with civil society, the private sector and other non-state actors.

From 2021-2023, Dr Boehme served as the Director-General’s Chef de Cabinet. In this role, she drove the leadership’s strategic vision, ensuring alignment across the Organization and with Member States and partners.

Prior to assuming this role, Dr Boehme was the Chief Executive Officer of FIND, the international alliance for diagnostics, for 8 years. Under her leadership, the Organization improved access to diagnosis for more than 100 million people in low- and middle-income countries and tackled major emerging challenges such as antimicrobial resistance, infectious disease outbreaks and noncommunicable diseases. She was co-convener of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator to drive equitable access to COVID-19 testing.

Early in her career, Dr Boehme worked in Ghana and the United Republic of Tanzania, focusing on clinical research to eliminate tuberculosis. She has served on several WHO and global advisory bodies, participated in two Lancet Commissions and published in several hundred peer-reviewed publications.
Dr Boehme trained as a medical doctor and has diplomas in public health and management.

Dr Sania Nishtar is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Dr Nishtar, most recently a Senator in her home country of Pakistan, joined Gavi as its CEO on 18 March 2024.

A trained medical doctor, Dr Nishtar has built an outstanding career over 30 years as a national and global leader. In Pakistan’s national government, she served between 2018 and 2022 as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation, a role with the status of a Federal Minister. During this time, she founded a social protection programme and chaired the Council on Poverty Alleviation and the Benazir Income Support Program. In 2013, during Pakistan’s Caretaker Government, she served as a Federal Minister with responsibility for re-establishing the country’s Ministry of Health among other roles, winning acclaim for transparency and accountability during her time in office.

During her career, Dr Nishtar has fulfilled several leadership positions in civil society and international organisations. She founded the non-profit NGO think tank Heartfile, which campaigns for health reform in Pakistan. She was the inaugural Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Independent Accountability Panel (IAP) for women’s and children’s health; and, among other roles, served as Co-Chair of the WHO Independent High-level Commission on Noncommunicable Diseases, WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity, World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Health and Healthcare and US National Academy of Sciences’ global study on health care quality in low- and middle-income countries. Dr Nishtar served as Chair of Gavi’s Evaluation Advisory Committee from 2011 to 2014, and in 2016 served as an independent member of Gavi’s Board. A prolific thought leader, she has co-authored dozens of academic papers and books, including Pakistan’s first compendium of health statistics; and she has been published in many leading national and international newspapers.

Dr Nishtar graduated from Khyber Medical College as the best graduate in 1986 and joined the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences as a cardiologist in 1994. She worked at Guy’s Hospital and studied Medicine, graduating in 1996 from King’s College London – which awarded her a PhD in 2002 and an honorary Doctorate in Science, Honoris Causa, in 2019. She is listed among the notable alumni of King’s College and in 2020 was among the BBC’s 100 Women, a list of inspiring and influential women from around the world. Dr Nishtar has received many international awards for her work, including the European Association for Population Studies Award, Pakistan’s prestigious Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) and The Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Innovation Award.

Mr. Ong Ye Kung is the Minister for Health. He was elected Member of Parliament for Sembawang Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in September 2015, and was re-elected in July 2020 in Sembawang GRC.

He had held the positions of Minister for Transport, Minister for Education, Second Minister for Defence and board member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.  He is also the Chairman of the Chinese Development Assistance Council.

Prior to joining politics, he held various positions in Government, including Chief Executive Officer of the Singapore Workforce Development Agency, and Deputy Chief Negotiator for the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement.  He served several years in the Labour Movement, as the Deputy Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress, and spent some time in the private sector, as the Director of Group Strategy at Keppel Corporation.

Mr Ong graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK) and the Institute of Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland. He is married with two children.

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Ms. Deborah Waterhouse was appointed to the GSK Leadership Team on 8 January 2020. She became Chief Executive Officer of ViiV Healthcare on 1 April 2017.

ViiV Healthcare is majority owned by GSK, with Pfizer Inc. and Shionogi Limited as shareholders. In addition to leadership of the HIV business, she also leads GSK’s Global Health organisation.

Deborah joined GSK in 1996 and was most recently the Senior Vice President of Primary Care within the company’s US business, prior to which she led the US Vaccines business.

She brings a wealth of experience to GSK having lived and worked in Europe, Asia Pacific and the USA, and a strong track record of performance in both speciality and primary care.

Deborah led the HIV business in the UK before heading the HIV Centre of Excellence for Pharma Europe, and held international roles as General Manager of Australia and New Zealand and Senior Vice President for Central and Eastern Europe.