DNDi is very pleased to announce the appointment of Joelle Tanguy as Director of External Affairs and a member of the organization’s Executive Team.

Ms Tanguy comes to DNDi with a wealth of policy advocacy, resource development and communications experience in the public and private sectors. Ms Tanguy served as Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Diplomacy with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and as Director of External Relations for GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, where she orchestrated the first GAVI pledging conference in 2011 which raised USD 4.3 billion.

Ms Tanguy also spent five years as Managing Director of the Global Business Coalition on HIV, TB and Malaria, guiding Fortune 500 firms to engage in the fight against the “big three” diseases, and concurrently served as the private sector focal point for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS TB & Malaria Board of Directors. She also helped establish the TB Alliance as its founding Director for External Relations and Public Policy.  Most recently, she was Director of the Strategic Partnerships, Advocacy and Communications at UN Women. Ms Tanguy also serves on the Board of the Access to Medicine Index Foundation.

Ms Tanguy’s personal commitment to increase access to healthcare was well established during her years working for Médecins Sans Frontières in Uganda, Somalia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus, after an initial career as product manager in Silicon Valley firms. She served as the first Executive Director of Doctors Without Borders/MSF USA, where she turned the nascent US organization into the first source of private funding for the global network. A dual citizen of France and the United States, Ms. Tanguy received her MBA from France’s HEC Paris MBA in a joint programme with Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

“It is with great pleasure that we welcome Joelle to DNDi,” said Bernard Pécoul, Executive Director, DNDi. “Her track record of success in fundraising, public-private partnerships and policy advocacy, and her personal commitment to expanding access to medicines will be great assets for DNDi as we deploy a dynamic portfolio approach and engage strategic partners to address the needs of neglected patients.”