WHO headquarters leadership team
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Credits
Executive Director
Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director, WHO Health Emergencies Programme
As Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Michael Ryan leads WHO’s response to disease outbreaks, humanitarian crises and other public health emergencies.
At the forefront of managing acute risks to global health for nearly 25 years, Dr Ryan first joined WHO in 1996, within a newly established unit responding to emerging and epidemic disease threats. He has worked in conflict-affected countries across the world and has led WHO’s operational responses to high impact events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the SARS epidemic. In addition he served as a Senior Advisor on Polio Eradication for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative from 2013 to 2017, deploying to countries in the Middle East.
Dr Ryan is a founding member of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), which has aided the response to hundreds of disease outbreaks around the world.
Dr Ryan completed his medical training at the National University of Ireland, Galway, has a Master in Public Health from University College, Dublin, Ireland, and undertook specialist training in communicable disease control at the Health Protection Agency in London, United Kingdom and the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training.Delegation of authority from WHO Director-General
Chief Scientist
Dr Jeremy Farrar, Chief Scientist
As Chief Scientist, Jeremy Farrar will oversee the work of the Science Division, bringing together experts and networks working in science and innovation from around the world to guide, develop and deliver high quality health policies and services to the people who need them most.
Prior to joining WHO, Dr Farrar was Director of the Wellcome Trust. In his 9 years there, he oversaw a series of major reforms, restructuring and growth, with Wellcome now collaborating with partners around the world and focused on fundamental discovery research and three challenge areas of: infectious diseases; climate and health; and mental health, all with a commitment to ensuring that equity, diversity and inclusion are central to the science they support.
Before joining Wellcome, Dr Farrar spent over 17 years as Director of the Clinical Research Unit at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam. His clinical and research interests have been in integrated health research across a range of infectious diseases and noncommunicable illness including emerging infections, influenza, infections of the brain, dengue, typhoid, malaria, tuberculosis, antimicrobial resistance, opportunistic infections related to HIV and stroke. Dr Farrar was the founding chair of WHO’s R&D Blueprint and the founding director of the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) that led on to the work of the RECOVERY Trial and the UK COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium.
Dr Farrar trained in neurology and infectious diseases in London, Edinburgh and Oxford in the United Kingdom and in Melbourne in Australia. He has a PhD in Immunology from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom in partnership with the University of California in San Francisco in the United States of America.
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Assistant Directors-General
Dr Samira Asma, Assistant Director-General, Data, Analytics and Delivery
Dr Samira Asma is the Assistant Director-General for Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact at the World Health Organization (WHO), where she ensures that health data is reliable and accessible, and is used to improve health outcomes worldwide. She leads WHO's efforts to track and accelerate progress towards the Triple Billion targets and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals as well co-leading the game-changing Universal Health Preparedness Review. Dr Asma also oversees initiatives that support countries to deliver a measurable impact, including improving data quality, timeliness, and accessibility.
Before joining WHO in 2018, Dr Asma held leadership positions at the U.S, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for over two decades. During her tenure at the CDC, she established global health programmes, launched a worldwide initiative to reduce heart attacks and strokes, and led the development of a reliable and sustained surveillance system for tobacco control in 180 countries.
Dr Asma has authored over 150 publications, books, and policy papers on global health and public health surveillance. She is widely recognized as an expert in preventing leading risk factors that cause premature deaths. Dr Asma holds a Doctorate degree in Dental Surgery, a Master's in Public Health, and completed the U.S. Federal Executive Leadership Program.
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Dr Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General, Universal Health Coverage, Life Course
In the position of Assistant Director-General of the Universal Health Coverage, Life Course Division, Dr Aylward drives the Organization’s agenda to make primary health care available to all without financial hardship, and oversees WHO’s work on health systems, immunization and reproductive, maternal and child health.
Prior to taking up this position, Dr Aylward led WHO’s Transformation Agenda and the Organization’s involvement in special initiatives such as the multi-agency Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) Hub and the G20 Joint Finance-Health Task Force.
Dr Aylward has 30 years of experience with WHO, working at all three levels of the Organization and serving in a range of leadership positions including Director of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative Partnership, Assistant Director-General of the WHO Polio and Emergencies Cluster, Executive Director of the WHO Emergencies Programme, and Deputy Director-General for the West Africa Ebola Response. He also served as the Special Representative of the Director-General to the United Nations Emergency Ebola Response (UNMEER) from September 2014 to July 2016. In 2016, Dr Aylward led the establishment of the new WHO Emergencies Programme, then managed the reform of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) before returning to WHO in late 2017 to lead the design and implementation of WHO’s ongoing Transformation Agenda.
Dr Aylward is a physician and epidemiologist with a Medical Doctorate from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, a diploma from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom, and a Master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States of America.
Dr Hanan Balkhy, Assistant Director-General, Antimicrobial resistance
Dr Hanan Balkhy was appointed Assistant Director-General for Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in 2019. In this role she provides political and technical leadership to curb the devastating health and economic burdens of drug resistance. The work includes
focus on both supporting countries to implement AMR National Action Plans and strengthening the global response, including through multi-sectoral collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Organization for Animal Health, and United
Nations Environment Programme.
Prior to joining WHO, Dr Balkhy was Executive Director for Infection Prevention and Control at Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of National Guard, and the first Chairperson of the Infectious Diseases Research Department at the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center in Riyadh. She also served as Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infection Prevention and Control and Antimicrobial Resistance at King Abdulaziz Medical City Hospital.
A graduate of King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Dr Balkhy completed her paediatric residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA, and held a paediatric infectious diseases fellowship with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Case Western Reserve University, also in the USA.
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Dr Catharina Boehme, Assistant Director-General, External Relations and Governance
As 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.
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Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, Assistant Director-General for the Division of Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems in the Emergencies Programme
As Assistant Director-General for the Division of Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems in the Emergencies Programme, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu leads the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. In this role, he brings together a global collaboration of partners from multiple sectors that supports countries and stakeholders to address future pandemic and epidemic risks with better access to data, better analytical capacities, and better tools and insights for decision-making.
Prior to this, Dr Ihekweazu was the first Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and led the agency between 2016 and 2021. Prior to that, in 2017, he served as Interim Director of the West Africa Regional Centre for Surveillance and Disease Control. He has also held positions in the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
Dr Ihekweazu trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist and is a graduate of the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria. He has a Master of Public Health from the Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf, Germany. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship for the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) and subsequently completed his public health specialization at the United Kingdom's Faculty for Public Health.
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Dr Ailan Li, Assistant Director-General, Universal Health Coverage, Healthier Populations
In the position of Assistant Director-General of the Universal Health Coverage, Healthier Populations Division, Dr Ailan Li oversees WHO’s efforts to promote better health and well-being through interventions relating to the environmental, social, and economic determinants of health, including climate change, tobacco control, chemical safety, road safety, food systems and nutrition, physical activity, air pollution and radiation. The work will be carried out through a One Health approach.
Dr Li Ailan holds a medical degree from
Beijing Medical University in China and a Master’s degree in health social
science from Mahidol University in Thailand.
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Dr Yukiko Nakatani, Assistant Director-General, Access to Medicines and Health Products
As Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products, Dr Nakatani oversees the development and implementation of WHO’s norms and policies to ensure equitable access to quality medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for all populations everywhere, including for preventing and responding to epidemics.
Immediately prior to taking up this position, Dr Nakatani served as Director of the Cancer and Disease Control Division of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and as the Technical Advisor to the Minister of State for the COVID-19 Vaccination Task Force in Japan. Her first position at the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare dates back to 2001. In the following 20 years she held positions in a number of areas, including medical economics, research and development, health technology assessment and blood products. In addition, Dr Nakatani worked at the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States of America on the medical response to H1N1 influenza, in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also worked as a Medical Officer in the Medical Devices Team at WHO headquarters from 2012-2014.
Dr Nakatani holds a medical degree from Asahikawa Medical College, and a PhD in public health from the Graduate School of Medicine, both in Japan.
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Dr Razia Pendse, Chef de Cabinet
As Chef de Cabinet, Dr Pendse heads the Director-General’s Office, helping to drive the Organization’s priorities and initiatives, and ensuring alignment within the WHO leadership team and across the three levels of WHO.
Prior to taking up this position, Dr Pendse was Director of Healthier Populations and Noncommunicable Diseases in the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia. Before that she served as the WHO Representative in Sri Lanka, a position that she took up after more than a decade working in the areas of communicable disease and reproductive health at the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia. In the course of her WHO career, Dr Pendse has also worked at WHO headquarters in the areas of family and community health.
Dr Pendse holds a Master's degree in public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom and a medical degree from the Rajasthan University of Health Sciences in India.
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Dr Jérôme Salomon, Assistant Director-General, Universal Health Coverage, Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases
Appointed in April 2023, Dr Jérôme Salomon oversees a broad portfolio of technical programmes covering HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually-transmitted infections, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected tropical diseases, mental health, substance use disorders, and noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer.
Dr Salomon previously served as the Director-General for Health at the Ministry of Health and Prevention of France. He was a Member of the WHO Executive Board prior to his appointment as a WHO Assistant Director-General and has extensive experience in health systems management, communicable diseases and international public health.
Dr Salomon holds a medical degree, a Master of Public Health and a PhD in epidemiology.
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Mr Raul Thomas, Assistant Director-General, Business Operations
As Assistant Director-General for Business Operations, Raul Thomas has overall responsibility for WHO budget and planning, finance, human resources, procurement, security, administration and compliance.
During his more than 25 years of employment with WHO, Mr Thomas has served in the regions of Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific, as well as with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
In addition to managing the areas mentioned above, his experience with WHO has included managing administrative and security responses to environmental disasters and emergencies, including in areas of civil unrest and conflict.
Prior to his employment with WHO, Mr Thomas worked for two years for the United Nations Development Programme in New York City.
Mr Thomas holds a Master’s degree in Organizational Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
Delegation of authority from WHO Director-General