After a long career working 'hands on' in development and health, for NGOs, the British Government (DFID and FCO), the World Health Organization, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and most recently as Director of Governance at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria based in Geneva, I am now focused on academic pursuits (part time at LSHTM),  on consultancy (specialising in global health governance) and coaching and mentoring.

I have worked for over eighteen years ouside the UK, including in Nepal (twice, for VSO and DFID), in Pakistan (for ODA/DFID), and also in Zimbabwe, covering Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique as Senior Health and HIV Adviser for DFID. My Geneva years have been mostly focused on negotiation in UN agencies and foundations – as Counsellor at the UK Mission in Geneva - covering health and humanitarian agencies.  For the UK (and in constituencies with other Member States) I have sat on many boards, including WHO, UNAIDS, Unitaid, the Global Fund and others.  I also have sat in my individual capacity on the boards of the HIV Alliance (now Frontline AIDS), the Orchid Project, and the Center for Reproductive Rights.  In Geneva I also worked as Managing Director (Change Management/External Relations) at Gavi, as Executive Director of the Partnership for Maternal Newborn and Child Health at WHO, and in the Global Fund.

I started my professional life as a nurse and midwife, working for a few months as a midwife on the Cambodian border in a refugee camp, gained a degree in anthropology from UCL, and went on, while working full time in Nepal and Pakistan, to do my PhD as an external student of London University on reproductive health care policy in Nepal – while bringing up three children under five.