Mark Dybul to be the next executive director of the Global Fund

The Global Fund Board has selected Dr Mark Dybul to serve as the Fund’s next Executive Director. He previously served as head of the US President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

The decision was made by the Board on 15 November at its 28th meeting in Geneva, and the appointment will take effect in early February. Gabriel Jaramillo will step down as General Manager on 31 January, as was always intended. Dr Dybul is expected to take office in early February,

The selection of Dr Dybul was the final step in a lengthy and carefully-planned recruitment process. The Board’s Ad-Hoc Nominating Committee – whose work was praised by many Board members – carried out the search and the shortlisting process, eventually delivering four names to the Board. Those names were Monique Barbut, the French outgoing chief of the UN’s Global Environment Facility; Mark Dybul; Robert Greenhill, the Canadian Managing Director of the World Economic Forum and former President of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA); and Barbara Stocking, the British outgoing head of Oxfam.

Dr Dybul helped create, and later led, PEPFAR, the bilateral US AIDS programme that is comparable in size to the Global Fund, and is the largest global health initiative ever undertaken to address a single disease. Trained as a medical doctor with a specialty in immunology, he became an expert on AIDS as a clinician, scientist and administrator. Dr Dybul, born in 1963, is openly gay.

Dr Dybul has considerable understanding of programmes to treat and prevent AIDS, TB and malaria in developing countries, and has experience working with health administrators at many levels, especially in Africa. During his years with PEPFAR, he worked closely with the Global Fund, and in 2007–2008 served as Chair of the Fund’s Finance and Audit Committee.

This news item is edited from a longer article in GFO Issue 202 (16 November 2012).