Chief Executive Officer, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

Dr Seth Berkley joined Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, as CEO in August 2011, as it launched its five-year strategy to immunise a quarter of a billion children in the developing world with life-saving vaccines by 2015. With more than half a billion children now immunised and over seven million deaths averted, and following a hugely successful effort that raised over $7.5 billion to “replenish” Gavi’s funding, Dr. Berkley is now leading the organisation’s work to immunise a further 300 million children in the next five years, build sustainability into country immunisation programmes, and ensure that every child is reached with live-saving vaccines.

Prior to joining Gavi, Dr Berkley was the founder, president and CEO for 15 years of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the first vaccine product development public-private sector partnership. Under his leadership, IAVI implemented a global advocacy programme that assured that vaccines received prominent attention in the media and in forums such as the G 8, EU and the UN. He also oversaw the creation of a virtual vaccine product development effort involving industry, academia, and developing country scientists.

Prior to founding IAVI, Dr Berkley served as an officer in the Health Sciences Division at The Rockefeller Foundation. He has also worked for the Center for Infectious Diseases of the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and for the Carter Center where he served as an epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health in Uganda. He has consulted or worked in more than 50 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Dr Berkley sits on a number of international steering committees and corporate and not-for-profit boards, including those of Gilead Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences and the Acumen Fund.

He has been featured on the cover of Newsweek, recognised by TIME magazine as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” and by Wired Magazine as among “The Wired 25 – a salute to dreamers, inventors, mavericks and leaders.” Dr Berkley received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Brown University and trained in internal medicine at Harvard University. In 2013, Dr Berkley was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, for services to global public health and advancing the right to healthcare for all.