Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović was the fourth President of Croatia (2015-2020), a role which she was the first woman to hold. Over her lengthy career in public service, she was elected a Member of the Croatian Parliament (2003) and served as Croatia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (2003-2008), again becoming the first woman to serve in the position. She also served as Ambassador to the United States, co-accredited to Mexico, Panama, and the Organization of American States (2008-2011), and was also the first female Assistant Secretary General and member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Senior Leadership (2011-2014).

In addition to serving as GPMB co-Chair, Ms Grabar-Kitarović is a Women Political Leaders (WPL) Global Ambassador for Immunization, a Member of the High-Level Advisory Council for the High Representative for the UN Alliance of Civilizations, and Chair Emerita of the Council of Women World Leaders. She is currently an Executive in Residence at the Zagreb School of Economics and Management and serves on the boards of several non-profit institutions, including the US Atlantic Council, Halifax International Security Forum, Concordia Leadership Council, GLOBSEC, and Friends of Europe. She was elected as an Independent Member of the International Olympic Committee in 2020 and has been appointed Chair of the Future Hosts Commission for the Games of the Olympiad. She is also a Member of the Nizami Ganjavi International Centre.

Ms Grabar-Kitarović was previously a visiting fellow at the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics at American University in 2021, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame in October 2022. Parallel to her diplomatic and political careers, she has pursued an academic career in government, international relations, and security studies at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy (1994-1995), George Washington University (2002-2003), Harvard University (2009), Johns Hopkins University (2011), and the University of Zagreb. She is a recipient of the 2019 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement award for her “remarkable contributions as a leader, diplomat, and public servant”, the George Washington University President’s Medal, and several other national and international awards, decorations, recognitions, honorary doctorates, and honorary citizenships. 

Professor Ilona Kickbusch is the Founder and Chair of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She is a member of the WHO Council on the Economic of Health for All, Council Chair to the World Health Summit in Berlin, and vice-president of the European Health Forum Gastein. She has been involved in German G7 and G20 activities relating to global health and the global health initiatives of the German EU presidency in 2020 and most recently co-chaired  the T7 2022 taskforce on global health.  

She chaired the international advisory board for the development of the German global health strategy and advised on the establishment of the WHO Hub on Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. She works on a continuous basis with EU presidencies on global health and is advisor to the development of a revised European Global Health Strategy. 

Professor Kickbusch publishes widely and serves on many other commissions and boards. She initiated the @wgh300 list of women leaders in global health. She is program chair of the leaders in health network SCIANA at Salzburg Global. She is co-Chair of a Lancet FT Commission on “Governing health futures 2030: growing up in a digital world.” She is honorary professor at the Charité, Berlin.  

Professor Kickbusch has had a distinguished career with the World Health Organization. She was key instigator of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion and WHO Healthy Cities Network. She was the director of the Global Health Division at Yale University School of Public Health and responsible for the first Fulbright Programme on global health. She has received many prizes and recognitions. She has been awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz) and the WHO Medal for contributions to global health.  

Dr Daniel Ngamije has served as the Rwandan Minister of Health since February 2020. In this position he leads the development and execution of the Health Sector Strategic Plan. Prior to this, he served as the Director for malaria and neglected tropical diseases in WHO’s Country Office, based in Kigali. From 2007-2017, he spent 10 years coordinating mobilisation of resources and implementation of Projects funded by Multilateral and bilateral partners of the Ministry of Health through a single project’s implementation unit.

Dr Ngamije has served in different capacities in the entire Rwandan Health System since 1995 having held a wide range of leadership positions. For the last two years, he led the development and successful implementation of the COVID-19 comprehensive response plan.

Bience Gawanas is a Namibian lawyer. In 2018, she was appointed as Special Adviser on Africa for the United Nations (UN) after having served as Commissioner for Social Affairs at the African Union (AU) Assembly of Heads of State and Government, from 2002 to 2012. During her time as Commissioner, in partnership with Member States and UN agencies, she initiated pioneering activities such as the launch of the AU’s Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA), a movement for maternal and child health that mobilises global, regional, and country-level support from governments, civil society, and community leaders. She served as a Commissioner on the Public Service Commission in Namibia from 1991 to 1996, and an Ombudswoman in the Namibian Government from 1996 to 2003.

Ms Gawanas has also served as Director of the Board of the Central Bank of Namibia and as a lecturer in Gender Law at the University of Namibia. Throughout her career, she has been involved in many non-governmental organisations, including serving as Secretary-General of the Namibian National Women's Organization and as a patron of the Namibian Federation of Persons with Disabilities. As Chairperson of the Law Reform Commission, she oversaw the passage of the Married Persons'; Equality Act. In recognition of her achievements in the field of human rights and social development, she was given an award by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) for Most Outstanding Contribution to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. 

Ms Gawanas holds an LLB Honours degree from the University of Warwick, UK, and an Utter Barrister Degree from the Council of Legal Education School of Law. She also holds an Executive MBA from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the University of Western Cape.

Professor Ilona Kickbusch is the Founder and Chair of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She is a member of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, the WHO Council on the Economic of Health for All, Council Chair to the World Health Summit in Berlin and vice-president of the European Health Forum Gastein. She has been involved in German G7 and G20 activities relating to global health and the global health initiatives of the German EU presidency in 2020 and most recently co-chaired the T7 2022 taskforce on global health.  

She chaired the international advisory board for the development of the German global health strategy and advised on the establishment of the WHO Hub on Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence.  She works on a continuous basis with EU presidencies on global health and is advisor to the development of a revised European Global Health Strategy.  

Professor Kickbusch publishes widely and serves on many other commissions and boards. She initiated the @wgh300 list of women leaders in global health. She is program chair of the leaders in health network SCIANA at Salzburg Global. She is co-chair of a Lancet FT Commission on “Governing health futures 2030: growing up in a digital world.”  She is honorary professor at the Charité, Berlin.  

Professor Victor J. Dzau is the President of the United States National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and serves as Vice-Chair of the US National Research Council. He is also Chancellor Emeritus of Duke University.  

Previously, Professor Dzau was Chairman of Medicine at Harvard and Stanford Universities. His seminal work laid the foundation for development of lifesaving drugs known as ACE inhibitors, used globally to treat hypertension and heart failure. He also pioneered gene therapy for vascular disease.  

Professor Dzau has served as Chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Cardiovascular Disease Advisory Committee and now chairs the NIH Cardiovascular Progenitor Cell Translational Consortium. He also chairs the International Scientific Committee of the Qatar Precision Health and is a Member of the Health Biomedical Sciences Advisory Council of Singapore. In addition, he has previously served on the Board of Health Governors of the World Economic Forum and co-Chairs the Distributed Vaccine Manufacturing Collaborative. He founded the Duke Global Health Institute, Duke NUS Medical School in Singapore, and the Division of Global Health Equity at Harvard.  

Leading the NAM, Professor Dzau has launched important initiatives such as the Global Health Risk Framework (2016), the Global Health and the Future Role of the US (2017), Integrating Clinical Research into Epidemic Response: The Ebola Experience (2017), Crossing the Global Quality Chasm (2018), Human Genome Editing (2017), and the NAM Grand Challenge in Climate Change, Human Health & Equity.  

He is an inaugural member on the board of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), a Principal of the Global Access to COVID Tools Accelerator (ACT Accelerator), was on the interim board of Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation (CEPI), and is on the board of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). He was co-Chair of the G20-European Commission Scientific Expert Panel on Global Health Security and Advisor to the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Sustainable Financing for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response. He chairs the International Advisory Board of McGill’s School of Population and Global Health. 

Professor Dzau holds both a BSc in Biology and MD and DSc from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.  

Dr Jayati Ghosh is an Indian development economist. She is currently a Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the United States, and previously taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi for more than thirty years. 

Dr Ghosh has authored and/or edited over twenty books, and regularly writes columns on economics for Frontline and other prominent publications in India and around the world. She was Founder-Secretary of the International Development Economics Associates for 20 years and is one of the founders of the Economic Research Foundation in New Delhi. She has advised and consulted with many governments and international organisations and is a member of two high level Boards of the United Nations.

Dr Ghosh holds a BA from the University of Delhi, an MA and MPhil from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. 

Dr Maha El Rabbat is an Egyptian former Minister of Health and Population. She was one of the World Health Organization Director-General Special Envoys on COVID-19 and is a Professor of Public Health at Cairo University and a member of the AU Commission on Africa's COVID-19 response strategy.

With over 35 years' experience, Dr El Rabbat has held multiple high-level political, academic, and leadership positions. She has worked closely with national, regional, and international organisations as a public health expert on a wide range of health issues. She has particular experience working on health policies, system strengthening, and reform, particularly in lower and middle-income countries in fragile settings and among vulnerable groups for the progressive realisation of health equity and universal health coverage.