Victoria Goodfellow is former Managing Director, Global Health Financing at Lion’s Head Global Partners.

She has extensive experience advising governments, foundations, multilaterals and private sector organisations across a range of global health issues, with particular expertise in vaccines, diagnostics, and infectious disease.

Her work has included fund design and structuring and blended capital solutions; funding the development, manufacture and commercialisation of global health commodities; and designing innovative finance approaches to healthcare supply chains and service delivery.

Prior to Lion’s Head, Victoria was Senior Technical Advisor at Clinton Health Access Initiative, where she advised the Ethiopian government on health insurance reforms. Victoria has also held roles in the UK government and academia as a health economist.  Before focusing on the health sector, she spent a decade working in investment banking in  the UK for UBS, CitiGroup and Barclays.

Victoria has a M.Sc. in International Health Policy with Health Economics from the LSE, and a B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Manchester.

Phyllis Heydt focuses on Community Health Workers (CHWs) and frontline delivery systems for the Office of the U.N. S­pecial Envoy and the Global Health Alliance. Phyllis has co-led the ‘Backpack PLUS’ project, which seeks to create new attention around CHWs and develop innovative tools and approaches.

Phyllis previously worked in the Strategy Team at the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, and before that was an Engagement Manager in McKinsey’s healthcare practice in Germany and London. Phyllis holds a Masters of Economics and Business from the University of St.Gallen in Switzerland, and a Masters in International Health Policy and Health Economics from the London School of Economics.

Phyllis is passionate not only about health care in developing countries, but also about innovative models to improve the quality and performance of health systems across the globe. She co-founded and partially owns “discovering hands”, an award-winning social healthcare enterprise in Germany (www.discovering-hands.de)

Daniel Palazuelos, MD, MPH is a global health implementer-educator who holds positions at Harvard Medical School (HMS) the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Partners In Health (PIH). He started his career by living and working with community health workers (CHWs) in impoverished communities in Chiapas, Mexico, and these grassroots experiences have deeply influenced his approach to addressing the biggest challenges in global health.

Now as a clinician-educator in the US, a strategist for the PIH project in Mexico, a mentor at HMS, a residency assistant program director at BWH, and a senior health and policy adviser in community health systems at PIH, he offers these insight whenever possible to assure that our finest clinicians are trained to understand the community perspective, and our exemplar health systems are aligned to the real needs of people living in the poorest and most difficult circumstances.

Prior to starting TOTAL (formerly known as Total Impact Advisors), Ambassador Simon was a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development, where he co-authored More than Money, a report on impact investing as a development tool.

Previously, he held a variety of posts in the US federal government, including serving most recently as the United States Ambassador to the African Union and the Executive Vice President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). At OPIC, Ambassador Simon championed the Agency’s involvement in the social impact investment marketplace, spearheading efforts to finance housing in Africa, small and medium businesses in Liberia, and a large scale renewable power plant in Liberia. Ambassador Simon led the Agency’s effort to develop a series of social development funds for Africa, which resulted in the creation of four private equity funds focused on achieving extraordinary social results as well as strong financial performance.

Ambassador Simon also served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Relief, Stabilization, and Development for the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House, the first to hold this post. During his tenure at the NSC, Ambassador Simon oversaw the implementation of groundbreaking development initiatives, including the Millennium Challenge Account, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, and the President's Malaria Initiative. He was also responsible for the U.S. government response to international humanitarian disasters, such as the 2005 South Asia Earthquake.

From 2002 to 2003, Ambassador Simon was Deputy Assistant Administrator at the United States Agency for International Development, overseeing the agency’s development information and evaluation units. Earlier in his career, he served as Director of Business Finance and Strategic Planning at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Executive Office for Administration and Finance in several capacities, including Deputy Director for Research and Development.

Dr. Amit Chandra is an emergency physician and global health policy specialist. He has extensive international experience in the field of global health providing clinical care, undertaking epidemiologic research, building partner capacities, and advising on health systems development.

Amit studied economics at McGill University and development studies at the London School of Economics before attending medical school at the Eastern Virginia Medical School.

After completing his residency training in New York City, he began his career in global health with a two year post as clinical faculty at the University of Botswana School of Medicine, where he was promoted to head of emergency medicine.

He subsequently completed a Fulbright grant funded project in Rwanda, a two-year fellowship with the US government as an international health systems specialist, and numerous consultancies with the World Bank health financing global solutions group.

Amit is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

His current areas of focus include: health systems strengthening, innovative financing, health & climate change, trauma & road safety, and digital health.

Varsay previously worked an Investment Officer with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and was one of the leaders of that firm’s East African investment practice.  Prior to IFC, he served as a founding partner of SKS Rubber, LLC, a Liberian-based rubber farm  management and trading company. Prior to SKS, he was an investment banker with Wachovia  Securities (now Wells Fargo).

Varsay is an Advisor to and Director with companies in the media, beauty and healthcare sectors. He currently serves as an Advisor to Essence Ventures, the holding company of several media brands including the iconic Essence, Inc. the lifestyle media company focused  on black women. He is also a Co-Founder and Director of Uhai Haircare.

He is an Advisor to NEST 360 - a multi-country, multi-disciplinary initiative dedicated to halving neonatal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Varsay is also a Director of Snapper Hill Clinic, one of Liberia's oldest and largest primary healthcare companies.

Varsay received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management (KSM) at Northwestern University where he was the president of the Emerging Markets Club, a NBMBAA-Marriott Scholar and an Austin Scholar. He received his B.A. from Manhattanville College where he  was on the Dean’s List, was student body president, co-captain of the lacrosse team and was  vice-president of the school’s Kappa Zeta Chapter, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Anthony Gitau is a Graduate of Egerton University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry.

He is the Director Global Community Impact (GCI) for Sub Sahara Africa at Johnson and Johnson with a mandate to deliver the GCI strategy focused on supporting and championing front line health workers.
He was previously Director East Africa at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), in which role he operationalized the CIFF global strategy in the region and delivered the localisation agenda by ensuring that CIFF’s program’s are relevant to and engaged with local priorities and stakeholders.

Prior to this role, he was the Country Head Novartis Social Business.  In this  capacity he created a sustainable program that was aimed at positively impacting the communities living at the base of the pyramid in Kenya through improvement of health awareness and access to essential medicines.

Prior to this he was the Maternal and Child Health Director at PSI Kenya where he managed the strategic orientation of the department and ensured donor objectives and deliverables were met through positive engagement with Ministry of Health.

Anthony has a vast knowledge of the Pharmaceutical sector in East Africa having worked in the Pharmaceutical Market in Kenya and East Africa for 16 years, four of which were in the Access to medicines Area. As the Access to Medicines Manager for Sanofi in Eastern Africa he was in charge of improving access to Medicines and Information to the public in the areas of TB, Malaria, Epilepsy, Leichmanisis and Sleeping sickness.

Anthony is married and a father of 3 sons.

Koku is a health systems specialist and policy analyst. He currently serves as a Government Advisory Group member for the Financing Alliance for Health (FAH). Koku recently served as a Director of Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation for the Ghana Health Service. 

He has over 3 decades of experience in senior health management in Ghana including 16 years as District Medical Officer and 8 years as a Regional Director of Health Services. Prior to that, he worked as the National Coordinator of Ghana’s Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Initiative that revolutionized Primary Health Care in Ghana’s Health System Performance. 

Koku has been involved in several initiatives to promote health systems strengthening, policy research and implementation science for evidence-based decision-making in Ghana and several other countries. A feat that has seen him win several awards both nationally and internationally for his contribution to the health sector and the public health community.

Aparna is an experienced health policy and financing specialist with 15+ years of experience working with country governments in the design and implementation of health policy and financing reforms.  She is skilled at budget analysis, resource mobilization, costing, stakeholder engagement, strategy development, and program management.

Currently, Aparna serves as a Principal Program Manager, Payment Innovation at Blue Shield, California where she is primarily involved in the designing and testing of new, value-based provider payment models in the California health system. She also a member of the Government Advisory Group at FAH. 

Previously, Koku has served as a Senior Health Care Financial Analyst for the Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Services Department, a Senior Advisor for Zenysis Technologies. She also led the economics and financing portfolio at UCSF's Malaria Elimination Initiative that included the development of national investment cases to increase domestic funding for malaria elimination and transitions planning assessments to support countries to become independent from donor aid.  She has also served as the Director for Health of the Public Finance Division of the South African National Treasury for 8 years. Here, she managed the public sector health budget and informed decisions on health policy and financing.  She has also worked for the Namibian Ministry of Health, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USAID’s Health Policy Initiative, and the Government of Trinidad and Tobago.  Aparna holds a Master’s in health policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health, a Masters in Economic History from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor's degree in Development Studies from UC Berkeley.

Prof Miriam K. Were is a medical doctor, renowned public health specialist, teacher and publisher. She is currently serves as the Chairman of Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council (NACC) and the Board of AMREF (Africa Medical and Research Foundation) and on numerous other Boards. She is also a member of FAH’s Government Advisory Board. Professionally, she has worked for the Ministry of Health of Kenya; lectured at the University of Nairobi and taught at McGill University in Canada as an Associate Professor. Between 1985 and 2000, she worked with UN agencies such as UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Prof. Miriam K. Were has received many honours and awards throughout her professional life. She was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in public health and is a recipient of the first Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize. Other notable awards include - A National honors from the President of Kenya in 2005 for distinguished service to the nation, the Trail Blazer Award of the Women in Leadership Group by the Global Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in 2007. She was also selected from the entire Commonwealth for the 2007 Queen Elizabeth II Gold Medal for her outstanding contribution to international public health and supporting the health needs of disadvantaged people.