Building Bridges, Uniting for Impact: 2024 Annual Meeting

In-person: 8:30am – 12pm PT, Tuesday, May 21, San Francisco

Virtually: 8:50am – 11:30am PT (via Zoom) 

Register here.

The Bay Area Global Health Alliance’s Annual Meeting will bring together members to discuss pressing global health issues, including women’s health investments, the impact of climate change on health, and how to design effective multi-sector partnerships. Key stakeholders from major organizations like the Wellcome Trust, Google, and Roche Diagnostics will participate. This annual event is a prime opportunity for members of the Alliance to connect, reflect on our achievements, and strategize for the future.

Anchored by insights from the recent “Closing the Women’s Health Gap” and “Women’s Health R&D Opportunity Map” reports, our women’s health panel will address the unique challenges and opportunities to advance women’s health in low-resource settings and emerging markets and to explore effective strategies for closing the women’s health gap. Panelists include: Margot Fahnestock, Vice President of Strategic Development at Medicines360; Joanna Sickler, Vice President, Health Policy & External Affairs at Roche Diagnostics; and Annie Theriault, Managing Partner at Cross-Border Impact Ventures.

Wellcome Trust’s Alan Dangour, Director of Climate and Health, will be in conversation with Alexandra Destler, Senior Director, Western Region at Americares for a fireside chat on climate change and health. The Wellcome Trust funds research and initiatives to understand and mitigate the health impacts of climate change, focusing on innovative solutions, policy advocacy, and public engagement.

Building on the Alliance’s 2023 convenings and research on the intersection of implementation science and health equity, Alliance partnership experts will share insights on what they look for in partnerships, examples of successful collaborations, barriers they’ve faced, and initial ideas for developing an operational framework for optimizing equitable collaborations. Panelists include: Megan Ryskamp, Alliance board member and Social Impact Partnerships Lead at Google; Moupali Das, Executive Director, HIV Clinical Research, Virology Therapeutic Area at Gilead Sciences; and Mark Allen, Alliance board member and Director of Strategic Partnerships and Global Programs at Merck for Mothers. The panel will be moderated by  Natasha Sunderji, Alliance board member and Global Health and Nutrition Lead at Accenture Development Partnerships.

The meeting will also be a venue for networking, allowing members to establish new connections and learn about the latest developments within the Alliance’s extensive network of over 85 multi-sector members dedicated to advancing global health equity and innovation. In-person attendance is exclusive to Alliance members. 

Register here. Please note: In-person registration closes on Monday, May 20 at 12pm PT. Those who register after this date/time will receive only virtual access to the event.

To learn more about becoming a member, click here.

About our Speakers 

Bridging the Gap: Innovations, Investments and Collaborations for Women’s Health Equity:

Margot Fahnestock, Vice President of Strategic Development, Medicines360. Margot leads mission-based program development, impact measurement, and resource mobilization. As a philanthropy and policy expert in family planning and reproductive health, Margot formerly served as a Program Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, responsible for making grants to reduce unintended pregnancies and improve reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa. She was a founding member and catalyst for the Ouagadougou Partnership, which has mobilized more than $250 million in additional funding for family planning in Francophone West Africa. Prior to Hewlett, Margot was a policy analyst and project manager at Futures Group, providing technical and managerial oversight for family planning, HIV/AIDS, and malaria policy programs. Margot served two years as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer teaching English at a secondary school in Mali, West Africa. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Los Angeles and master’s in public policy from the University of Chicago.

Joanna Sickler, Vice President, Health Policy & External Affairs, Roche Diagnostics. Joanna’s background spans diagnostic, pharmaceutical and non-governmental organizations with a focus on public health, implementation science and policy to optimize medical value. She has a passion for improving people’s lives through access to healthcare innovations. Previously, at Roche Diagnostics, Joanna was Senior Director, Medical Affairs, where she was responsible for developing and executing the point-of-care molecular global medical strategy and leading clinical impact studies across the molecular infectious disease portfolio. This included a heavy emphasis on respiratory tests and a focus on pandemic response to COVID-19. Previously, at Zyomyx, she led market access strategy, policy and the post-approval clinical study programme to support the launch of the company’s first product, a point-of-care CD4 test for use in limited-resource settings. As part of the Access Program’s leadership team at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), she developed models and led advocacy for global procurement interventions to ensure the sustainability of the children’s HIV drug market. She collaborated with ministries of health throughout Africa to support the HIV Guidelines revision process and assess the cost impact of changes. Joanna holds a Master’s in Public Health and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University.

Annie Theriault, Managing Partner, Cross-Border Impact Ventures. Annie has been immersed in impact investing, venture capital, royalty financing, and capital markets throughout her career. As a venture capital investor and venture advisor, she worked with high impact companies to mobilize more than $100 million in non-dilutive capital. Annie was previously a director on the boards of several North American venture-backed companies, is an advisor to crowdfunding fintech company FrontFundr, and, prior to the launch of CBIV, was Chief Investment Officer at Grand Challenges Canada. Annie obtained her PhD in Management from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, is a CFA Charterholder, and holds the ICD.D designation. She also has a master’s degree in Business Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours in Chemistry from Mount Allison University. 

Forging Ahead Together: Overcoming Barriers in Multi-Sector Global Health Partnerships:

Natasha Sunderji, Alliance board member; Global Health and Nutrition Lead, Accenture Development Partnerships. Natasha is the Global Health and Nutrition Lead for Accenture’s social impact practice – Accenture Development Partnerships. She also co-leads Accenture’s Health Equity Center of Excellence. By engaging Accenture’s global workforce of over 700,000 employees, she works to address the world’s social, economic and environmental issues. Natasha is a visionary healthcare leader with over 18 years of experience advising multinational companies, nonprofits, foundations, and multilateral agencies on growth strategy, innovative business models, digital health, and cross sector partnerships. She is a vocal advocate for vulnerable and underserved communities. Natasha strives to drive care delivery transformation for health care organizations through financially sustainable, consumer centric, and data driven business models. She has worked with leading digital health platforms to design patient centric solutions, supported over 30 inclusive business models across low and middle-income countries, and advised policy makers on the regulations and investments needed to create robust digital health ecosystems. She was named a Top 50 Women Leader in San Francisco in 2023, and a Top 50 Innovator in 2020 by the World Summit AI community. Natasha holds a Bachelors in Biomedical Engineering from University of Toronto, and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School.

Megan Ryskamp, Alliance board member; Social Impact Partnerships Lead, Google. Megan has worked at the intersection of technology, partnerships, and social impact for more than twenty years and currently leads Google’s global Social Impact Partnerships team. She connects nonprofit organizations, governments, intergovernmental groups and other social impact-aligned partners with Google products to advance the mission of organizing the world’s information in important social impact areas such as health, economic opportunity, crisis response, climate, education and arts & culture, among others. These partnerships have been focused on bringing important information to users around the globe, helping them find access to healthcare, identify critical services, get help in a crisis, navigate changes in climate, engage in learning, and explore the arts. Prior to Google, Megan worked on Adobe’s emerging markets strategy and developed partnerships with governments and schools to enable Cisco’s technology education program in more than 50 countries. Megan holds a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Moupali Das, Executive Director, HIV Clinical Research, Virology Therapeutic Area, Gilead Sciences. Moupali leads the PrEP clinical drug development program, including evaluating the safety and efficacy of lenacapavir, a novel long-acting, twice yearly, subcutaneous injection for HIV prevention. Her responsibilities also include expanding the populations who can benefit from F/TDF and F/TAF for PrEP. She has led high-performing teams in academic medicine, public health, implementation science, and cross-functionally in drug development. She has successfully helped develop, implement, and evaluate how to better test, link to care, increase virologic suppression, and improve quality of life for people with HIV, and to prevent HIV in those who may benefit from PrEP. During the COVID19 pandemic she assisted her colleagues in the remdesivir program, leading the evaluation of remdesivir use in pregnant women and children from the compassionate use program. After completing her undergraduate degree in Biochemical Sciences at Harvard College, medical school and internal medicine residency training at Columbia University and New York Presbyterian Hospital, she came to University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) for fellowship training in Infectious Diseases and to University of California, Berkeley for her MPH in Epidemiology. She cared for HIV patients at San Francisco General’s storied Ward 86 clinic and attended the inpatient ID Consult Service. She is recognized internally and externally for her expertise in epidemiology, public health, advocacy, and community engagement. Prior to joining Gilead, Moupali developed a novel population-based indicator, community viral load (CVL), to evaluate the impact of treatment as prevention. Her CVL research was the basis for using viral suppression to evaluate the effectiveness of President Barack Obama’s National HIV/AIDS Strategy. She also served on the Institute of Medicine Committee on Data Systems for Monitoring HIV/AIDS care. She has authored >60 manuscripts, presented at scientific conferences, policy forums, and for community and advocacy organizations. Her publications have been highly cited and garnered significant press coverage including in The New York Times and Nature.

Mark Allen, Alliance board member; Director of Strategic Partnerships and Global Programs, Merck for Mothers. Mark has had over 20 years of professional experience in both the private and international development sector. Currently Merck for Mothers’ Director of Strategic Partnerships and Global Programs, Mark is responsible for managing strategic partners across the program portfolio as well as oversight on the initiative’s global programming including Merck for Mothers’ digital portfolio. Prior to Merck for Mothers, Mark was the Managing Director for Africa Programs with Malaria No More managing the organization’s investments across six countries. Mark started his professional career in international development at the Touch Foundation — a McKinsey and Co.-founded organization focused on building human resource capacity in the health sector in Tanzania. Prior to the Touch Foundation, Mark lived in rural Kenya as a Peace Corps Volunteer focusing on micro-enterprise development with farmers which inspired his shift from an earlier career in management consulting. Mark holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University.

Climate Change and Health Fireside Chat:

Alan Dangour, Director of Climate and Health, Wellcome. Alan leads the Climate and Health team in the delivery of Wellcome’s strategy in this new challenge area. He joined Wellcome in January 2022 to lead an ambitious new Climate and Health strategy that seeks to put health at the heart of global climate change action.For the past 20 years, Alan worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) where he was Professor of Food and Nutrition for Global Health. At LSHTM, Alan led an interdisciplinary team working on the interconnections between environmental change, food systems and health and was the Director of the Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health. Alan has substantial experience working internationally and with government partners – he was a Senior Research Fellow for the UK Department for International Development and an Expert Advisor for the Environmental Audit Office of the UK Parliament.

Alexandra Destler, Senior Director, Western Region, Americares. For over two decades, Alexandra has worked to spark swift change in our public health system. Her aim? To promote global environmental sustainability – not in theory but in practice. Rather than preaching to the converted, she brings together public and private organizations, champions and naysayers, leading healthcare, non-profit and Fortune 500 companies, to drive change. Alexandra currently serves as Americares Senior Managing Director where she leads all aspects of growth across domestic western regions, including scaling strategic partnerships with foundations, corporations, individuals, academic and health institutions. She also designs and leads thought leadership opportunities focused on climate, health and health equity. Previously, she launched the Public Health Institute’s Center for Climate Change and the American Hospital Association’s environmental stewardship initiative; co-developed The Greenfield Path, a communications project driving Ford Motor Company’s move to a more sustainable business. Finally, distressed by the lack of easily accessible health information about toxic chemicals that is consumer focused and actionable for all pregnant women and new families, particularly women of color, she founded and passionately leads a start-up called SafetyNEST. Alexandra serves as an advisor to NIEHS Center on Health and Environment Across the Life Span @ Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine. She holds degrees from Harvard, Cornell and the Sorbonne.