Advancing UHC and Pandemic Preparedness, and Ending Tuberculosis

Ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane is a distinguished Japanese diplomat who currently serves as the Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations. He assumed the role in November 2019, after serving as the Ambassador to Canada.   Ambassador Ishikane has had a long and distinguished career in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spanning over three decades. He joined the ministry in April 1981, shortly after completing his B.A. in Law from Tokyo University.   Throughout his career, Ambassador Ishikane has held several key positions in Japan's foreign policy establishment. He has served as Director of the International Science Cooperation Division, First Africa Division, and Loan Aid Division. He has also held important overseas postings, including as First Secretary and Counsellor at the Japanese Embassy in France, and as Minister at the Japanese Embassy in the United States.   In addition to his roles in Japan's foreign policy apparatus, Ambassador Ishikane has also served as Executive Assistant to the Prime Minister and as Deputy Minister for Foreign Policy. He has also represented Japan as its Ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).   Ambassador Ishikane is known for his expertise in international cooperation, aid policy, and Asian and Oceanian affairs. As Japan's representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Ishikane is responsible for promoting Japan's foreign policy objectives, negotiating and drafting resolutions, and participating in various UN meetings and conferences. He is actively involved in the work of the UN Security Council, where Japan serves as a non-permanent member for the 2023-2024 term.   Overall, Ambassador Ishikane's wealth of experience and expertise make him a valuable representative of Japan at the United Nations, as he works to promote Japan's interests and contribute to global peace and prosperity.

Gabriela Cuevas Barron has been Co-Chair of the UHC2030 Steering Committee since 2021 and was a member of the UHC Movement Political Advisory Panel in 2020. She is a Commissioner at the Chatham House Commission for Universal Health. She was also a member of The Lancet Covid-19 Commission where she served as Co-Chair of the Commission’s Task Force on Humanitarian Relief, Social Protection, & Vulnerable Groups and was a member of the Task Force on Global Health Diplomacy and Cooperation and the Regional Task Force for Latin America. Active in politics since she was 15 years old, Gabriela was elected Federal Member of Parliament for the first time at age 21. She has been Federal Member of Parliament three times, Local Member of Parliament and a Constituent Member of Parliament in the Constituent Assembly of Mexico City. Additionally, she was the first woman to be elected Mayor of the Miguel Hidalgo Delegation. She also chaired the Foreign Relations Commission when she served as Senator. In 2017 Gabriela Cuevas Barron became the youngest President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). In her term, Gabriela worked to increase the prominence and relevance of the IPU as the global institution for parliamentarians. She is currently the Honorary President of the IPU. She was decorated with the grade of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the Government of France, and the Cavaliere di Gran Croce, Ordine Equestre di Saint’ Agata on behalf of the Government of the Republic of San Marino.

Priya Basu serves as the Executive Head of the Secretariat for the Pandemic Fund, hosted by the World Bank, and leads the World Bank's engagement on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response in global fora like the G20 and G7. She has over three decades of experience in development finance, having held multiple technical and leadership positions at the World Bank since joining in 1998 through the Young Professionals Program.   Before her current role, Priya was the Head of Development Finance at the World Bank, where she contributed to IDA20's policy priorities on crisis preparedness and response. She also served as the inaugural head of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), creating the vision, strategy, and execution of this global initiative.   Throughout her career, Priya managed the World Bank's $21 billion multi-donor fund portfolio, which focused on global commons like pandemic threats, climate change, food security, and debt relief. As Lead Economist for the South Asia Region, she worked on reshaping the Bank's finance and private sector engagement strategy for India, concentrating on financial inclusion, investment climate reforms, jobs, and growth.   Additionally, Priya has experience as an economist in the Bank's Europe and Central Asia Region, working on bank restructuring in Russia, and in East Asia, as part of the Bank's financial sector restructuring program for Indonesia following the 1997 East Asian crisis.   Before joining the World Bank, Priya worked in investment banking in London, and held economist positions at the International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank, UNCTAD, and ILO.   As an accomplished author, Priya has written three books on financial resilience, reform, and access in Asia and India. She holds a B.A. (Hons.) in economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, a B.A (Hons.)/M.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Merton College, Oxford University, and M.Sc./postgraduate degrees in development economics from Oxford University.

Hamilton Bennett (she/her) is the Senior Director of Vaccine Access and Partnerships at Moderna, a company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines. Hamilton maintains alliances with a broad range of domestic and overseas government and commercial collaborators, which has allowed for the pursuit of both groundbreaking science and rapid scaling of manufacturing. In this role, Hamilton led the COVID-19 vaccine development Program Team to the authorized use and approval of one of the earliest and most effective vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic. In her current role Hamilton is responsible for the Global Public Health portfolio, including Moderna’s commitment to develop vaccines against persistent and priority pathogens of public health concern.  Most recently, Hamilton launched mRNA Access to provide researchers access to Moderna’s early development engine in order to collaboratively advance novel vaccines targeting emerging and neglected infectious disease. Prior to Moderna, Hamilton led small molecule and monoclonal antibody pandemic preparedness programs at biotech companies.

Anna Caravaggio is Vice President of Global Public Health (GPH) Franchises at Johnson & Johnson. In this role, Anna is an accomplished business and public health leader with responsibility for enabling world-class teams to develop the strategies, programs and partnerships needed to support launch and sustainable access to Johnson & Johnson’s innovative medicines and medical technologies in areas such as Tuberculosis (TB), HIV, Neglected Tropical Diseases, Global Surgery and early pipeline R&D.  In addition, she was the architect and now oversees a dedicated Consumer-Centered Strategy & Insights team that is bringing a differentiating focus on patient insights and strategies to global health.    She was previously the Global Leader of Consumer-Centered Strategy and Innovation for the GPH organization where she leveraged her extensive 24-years of global and local experience in consumer marketing and commercial leadership roles to enable access to innovative technologies. In 2019, thanks to her success in forging ground breaking and impactful partnerships to advance HIV care, Anna was dedicated to PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), a US government program that offers HIV/AIDS support to over 50 countries, serving as the Chief Marketing Officer for MenStar,  a public-private partnership launched in 2018 that is working to reach men in sub-Saharan Africa with HIV diagnosis and treatment services.   Anna joined GPH after a long history in Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health, serving as a senior marketing director in both global and Canadian businesses for household names such as Tylenol, Motrin, Reactine, Benylin and Nicorette. In these roles, she was responsible for leading cross-functional teams that delivered growth based on strong insights and innovation and high employee engagement.    Anna holds a Master of Business Administration from the Schulich School of Business and an Honors BA History and Economics from York University in Toronto, Canada. She lives in Toronto, Canada with her two sons.

Lisha McCormick is Chief Executive Officer of Last Mile Health, leading a team of more than 200 people to strengthen community health systems in partnership with governments in Africa. Lisha joined Last Mile Health in 2013, serving as Chief Development Officer and President and Chief Operating Officer before assuming the position of Chief Executive Officer. Under her leadership, Last Mile Health has grown from a district-level pilot in Liberia to an international organization reaching nearly five million people at the last mile. Lisha began her career as a community health worker. For more than 20 years, she has worked to design and implement systems of care that engage historically excluded communities. Prior to joining the Last Mile Health team, her work was principally focused on public sector healthcare in the United States, where she tailored programs and services to meet the needs of runaway and homeless youth, those living with mental illness, and those navigating substance use disorders. Lisha holds a Master of Public Health from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, a Certificate in Executive Administration & Non-Profit Management from Harvard Business School, and a dual Bachelor’s degree in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Lisha currently serves as a Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government Social Innovation & Change Initiative Visiting Social Entrepreneur.

Prashant Yadav is Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Affiliate Professor of Technology and Operations Management at INSEAD, and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. In addition to his roles in academia and think tank, Prashant serves on the boards of Rhia Ventures, Macro-eyes, ARC, and many other healthcare related organizations . In his previous roles Prashant has worked as Strategy Leader-Supply Chain at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Vice President of Healthcare at the William Davidson Institute and Faculty at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan; Professor of Supply Chain Management at the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program. He has also provided expert testimony on healthcare operations and supply chains on multiple occasions in prominent legislative bodies around the world, including the US Congress. Prashant trained as a Chemical Engineer and obtained his PhD in Management Science & Operations Research. He is the author of many peer-reviewed scientific publications, and his work has been featured in prominent print and broadcast media such as BBC, CNN, WSJ, FT, Science, Nature, Wired, and Vanity Fair. 

Thomas Cueni is Director General of IFPMA, the global association of pharmaceutical research companies, based in Geneva and is Secretary of the global Biopharmaceutical CEO Roundtable (BCR). In this capacity, Thomas Cueni was instrumental in creating the AMR Action Fund, a collective venture, launched in July 2020, to bridge the current gap in funding for the development of new antibiotics. Thomas Cueni represents the innovative biopharmaceutical industry on the ACT Accelerator, the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, a unique global collaboration to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. Thomas Cueni is Chair of the Business at OECD Health Committee, and also serves as Industry Co-Chair of the APEC Biopharmaceutical WG on Ethics. Furthermore, he is Chair of the Board of the cross-sectoral AMR Industry Alliance, a group committed to tackling the threat of antimicrobial resistance, which includes more than 100 companies and associations representing Rx pharma, generics, biotech, and diagnostics. Prior to joining IFPMA he was Secretary General of Interpharma, the association of pharmaceutical research companies in Switzerland, and for many years was a member of the Board and Chair of a key committee of the EFPIA. Prior to his appointment with Interpharma, Thomas Cueni had a career as a journalist, inter alia as London correspondent for the “Basler Zeitung” and “Der Bund”, and he served as a Swiss career diplomat with postings in Paris (OECD) and Vienna (IAEA, UNIDO). He studied at the University of Basel, the London School of Economics, and the Geneva Graduate Institute for International Studies, and has Master degrees in economics (University of Basel) and politics (London School of Economics).

Dr. Mayesha Alam is vice president of research at FP Analytics where she oversees the research team and leads research development for clients and partners. She previously helped establish and served as deputy director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and has also worked with the United Nations, World Bank, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and various nongovernmental organizations. Dr. Alam is the author of two books, Women and Transitional Justice and, with Robert Egnell, Women and Gender Perspectives in the Military, as well as reports on conflict, climate change, health, and gender. Her commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, Newsweek, and elsewhere. A nonresident senior fellow of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, Dr. Alam has taught at Georgetown University and New York University, and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Andrew Sollinger is the publisher and CEO of Foreign Policy, which he joined in 2018. Previously, he was executive vice president at Business Insider, executive director of Capital New York (now Politico NY) and managing director of the Financial Times Americas. Sollinger was part of the executive team that built Money-Media, a digital news startup focused on the fund management industry, and sold it to the FT. A former reporter and editor for Institutional Investor magazine's newsletter division, Andrew has lived in London, Hong Kong and New York. He is a graduate of Clark University, where he was executive editor of The Scarlet.