Speakers

Guest speakers at the upcoming 2010 Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting (CHMM)

Cristian Baeza
Partner , McKinsey and Company

Dr Cristian Baeza is a Partner in McKinsey and Company, the Global Health Systems Financing group (Health Systems Policy, Financing, and Health Insurance). He leads health systems and health financing work in Middle East, Mediterranean, Latin America and North Africa with particular focus on the design and implementation of national health insurance systems, insurance financing arrangements, and the management of their fiscal, labour and macroeconomic implications. .

Cristian has written and lectured extensively on health care financing and health systems globally and has been a senior contributing member to a number of multilateral initiatives on health systems and health financing including co-leading the technical team for World Health Report 2000, participating in the World Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (working group 2), the Global Forum for Health Sector Reform, and the World Economic Forum Agenda Council.

Nigel Crisp
Independent crossbench member of UK House of Lords

Nigel Crisp is an independent crossbench member of the House of Lords and works mainly on international development and global health.

His new book Turning the world upside down - the search for global health in the 21st Century was published in January 2010. It takes further the ideas about mutual learning between rich and poor countries that he developed in his 2007 report for the Prime Minister ? Global Health Partnerships: the UK contribution to health in developing countries ? and shows how this will shape healthcare in the future.

From 2000 to 2006, he was both Chief Executive of the NHS, the largest health organization in the world, and Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health and led major reforms in the English health system.

A Cambridge philosophy graduate, he worked in community development and industry before joining the NHS in 1986.

More information is available at http://www.nigelcrisp.com/ 

Jacob Kholi
Managing Partner, Aureos West/North Africa

Jacob Kholi is the Managing Partner of Aureos West Africa Fund, a US$50m private equity Fund investing in the ECOWAS region with Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal as the primary target countries. The Fund made 11 investments across the three countries.

He is one of three joint managing partners of the Aureos Africa Fund a US$381m private equity fund investing in Africa. He has geographical responsibilities for investments in West and North Africa in addition to functional roles across Africa.

Jacob is also the Fund Manager of the Africa Health Fund (AHF), sponsored by the IFC, DEG, AfDB and the Gates Foundation. Currently at US$57m, AHF is still fundraising with a target of US$100m.

Hans Rosling
Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet

Hans Rosling is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet, the medical university in Stockholm, Sweden. His 20 years of research on global health has focused on the links between economic development, agriculture, poverty and health in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

He has been adviser to the WHO and UNICEF and other aid agencies. He co-founded Médecines sans Frontiers in Sweden. He co-founded Gapminder Foundation (http://www.gapminder.org/) which converts international statistics into moving, interactive, understandable and graphics.

Gloria Wiseman
Director, Multilateral Relations Division, Health Canada

Gloria Wiseman has been Director of Health Canada?s Multilateral Relations Division since 2005. In this capacity, she is responsible for supporting Canada's engagement in key multilateral fora addressing global health issues including the World Health Organization. Gloria has played a leading role in negotiating key public health agreements and treaties, including the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the International Health Regulations.

Prior to her work at Health Canada she served as a Senior International Policy Analyst at Status of Women Canada, where she was a lead negotiator at the UN Commission on the Status of Women and the UN Conference on Human Settlements. She also developed the government?s first aboriginal women and economic development fund and served as a member of the Minister of Health?s National AIDS Working Group on Women and AIDS. Gloria has studied at the Institute for International Development and Co-operation, University of Ottawa, and has completed Queen?s University?s Public Policy Executive Program.

She has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from Queen?s University.

visit www.hc-sc.gc.ca

Dr Leslie Ramsammy
Honorable Minister of Health of Guyana

Dr Leslie Ramsammy is the longest-standing health minister in the world and is recognised as a global leader in Health. He is the current Chair of the Steering Committee for the establishment of the Caribbean Public Health Agency; current Chairman of Affordable Medicines for Malaria (AMFm), an entity operated by the Global Fund to provide medicines for malaria to countries around the world; and a Member of the Advisory Committee of the Non-Communicable Disease Network (NCDnet)..

Minister Ramsammy is Past President of the World Health Organization?s 61st World Health Assembly (2008-2009) and Past President of the Pan American Health Organization?s 47th Directing Council (2006-08). He has served as the Member on the Board of the Global Fund (GF), representing the Caribbean and Latin America (2008 ? 2009) and is presently the Alternate Board Member representing Latin America and the Caribbean on the GF?s Board. He served during 2008 and 2009 as a member representing Latin America and the Caribbean on the GF?s Policy and Strategy Committee.

In Guyana, Dr Ramsammy has been a Member of Parliament since 1997 and has served as Minister of Health since 2001. .

An ardent advocate of equity and social justice, Dr Ramsammy calls for global resources to be mobilized for more equitable health.

He feels passionately that infant and child mortality should be the most important indicator for success in public health work. "If we build our health systems to minimize infant and maternal mortality, then we will have systems that can address other human health challenges.

The Hon. Dr. Hubert Minnis, MP
Minister of Health, The Bahamas

The Honourable Dr Hubert Minnis, Member of Parliament for the Killarney Constituency was sworn in as Minister of Health by His Excellency the Honourable Arthur D. Hanna Governor-General on May 07th, 2007.

Hubert Minnis, a medical doctor by profession, was born in Bain Town to Rosalie North and Randolph Minnis.

He was educated at Our Lady?s Primary School, Western Junior and St. Augustine College, Nassau, and the University of Minnesota, USA.

After obtaining his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of the West Indies and MRCOG from London in 1985, Dr. Minnis returned home and began serving the Bahamian people as a physician at the Princess Margaret Hospital.

There, he served as a Consultant and Head of Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and as Deputy Chief of Staff.

Dr Minnis is a former President of the Medical Association of The Bahamas, Member of the Medical Council and Chairman of the Hotel Corporation of The Bahamas, and an associate lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.