Anuradha Gupta appointed Deputy CEO of Gavi Alliance

Anuradha Gupta

The GAVI Alliance has appointed Anuradha Gupta as its new Deputy Chief Executive Officer. With more than 30 years of experience in public health and public policy, Gupta brings with her a wealth of management and leadership expertise, a proven track record of success and a passion for making a profound social impact.

Gupta is currently responsible for managing the world’s largest public health programme, with an annual budget equivalent to $3.5 billion in her role as Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Mission Director of the National Health Mission, Government of India. During this time she has played an integral role in India’s hugely successful polio eradication programme, taking strategic decisions that helped secure a polio-free India – a feat once considered impossible by many observers.

Gupta will join the GAVI Executive Office on June 2, 2014 and will be based at the Alliance’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

“We welcome Gupta, who joins us at a critical point in the GAVI Alliance mission,” said Dr Seth Berkley, Chief Executive Officer, GAVI Alliance.

“I am delighted to be joining the Alliance at this exciting time,” said Gupta. “I see GAVI as a strong organisation powered by people with a determined spirit who are spurred by an insatiable faith in their mission to save lives. I very much look forward to becoming a part of that mission.”

In addition to her position within the Government of India, Gupta was also co-chair of the Partnership for Maternal Neonatal & Child Health (PMNCH), and in 2012, at the invitation of then US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, was a member of the steering committee for the watershed ‘Child Survival: Call to Action’.

Gupta holds an MBA from Wollongong University in Australia and has read Public Policy at Maxwell School in the US. She has also received executive education at Stanford Business School and John F Kennedy School, Harvard University. Gupta will succeed current GAVI Alliance Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Helen Evans, who is retiring.

EP News Bureau – Mumbai