Board of Directors

Mark Kessel is the Chairman of the FIND Board of Directors.  He co-founded Symphony Capital LLC, a private equity firm investing in the clinical development programs of biopharmaceutical companies. He is widely recognized as a leader in structuring product development investments for the biopharmaceutical industry. Mr. Kessel was formerly the managing partner of Shearman & Sterling, with day-to-day operating responsibility and is currently of-counsel to the Firm. He is also a member of Fondation Santé and an Editorial Advisor to Nature Biotechnology.  He also serves on the Board of Organovo Holdings, INC and serves on strategic advisory committees of biotechnology companies, has served as a director of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, Dynavax Technologies Corporation, OXiGENE, Inc., Antigenics, Inc., Heller Financial Inc., and Harrods (UK) Limited, a Trustee of the Museum of the City of New York and on the advisory committee of the Mt. Sinai Rape Crisis Center. He is promoting world health and diagnostic issues in journals such as Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, Nature Biotechnology, The Lancet, The Scientist, Science Translational Medicine, Start-Up, BioCentury and other publications. He is also frequently published in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Deal, NACD Directorship, BNA’s Corporate Counsel Weekly, Bloomberg BNA, Corporate Law & Accountability Report and Euromoney. He received a B.A. with honors in Economics from the City College of New York and a J.D. magna cum laude from Syracuse University College of Law.

Daniel Camus has more than 25 years of experience as a senior executive, implementing long-term expansion in complex financial operations, including a recent position as Group Executive Director of Electricité de France (EDF), where he also oversaw international operations at the largest electric utility company in the world. He is well-known among financial leaders in Europe for his deep knowledge of international finance, his personal integrity and his ability as a top-line manager. He holds a PhD in Finance and Economics from the Sorbonne in Paris.

A graduate of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris specializing in finance, Mr. Camus began his career at Hoechst, a leading company of the chemical industry in Germany. Initially, he covered the financing of all affiliates of the Hoechst Group in Africa. Excelling in strategic planning and development, he was later sent to Montreal to realize the integration of a major acquisition in North America.

Over two decades, Mr. Camus developed and honed his expertise in solving complex financial challenges and steering global transformation through mergers in the health care industry. He first returned to France to join Roussel Uclaf, a pharmaceutical company, where he was soon promoted to Chief Financial Officer. He orchestrated a complex financial restructuring of Roussel in 1997, and re-built the company’s financial control system, becoming General Manager in the process.

Mr. Camus was promoted to head Finance for the pharmaceutical company of Hoechst, the only Frenchman in senior management ranks of a German company. As CFO of Aventis Pharma, following the merger of Hoechst and Rhone-Poulenc, he led the financial structuring of pharmaceutical divisions across more than 130 affiliates.

In 2002, he became Group CFO of Electricité de France, one of the largest energy companies in the world, again leading the transformation of the company in a newly competitive environment and in its stock exchange listing.

In August 2012, Mr. Camus was appointed Chief Financial Officer of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. His Board memberships include Cameco Corporation, Saskatoon; Morphosys AG, Munich; SGL Carbon AG, Wiesbaden; Valeo SA, Paris; and Vivendi SA, Paris.

Ambassador Christian Frutiger is Assistant Director General and Head of Global Cooperation at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). He is responsible for five thematic global programmes at the SDC, which aim to solve global challenges relating to climate change, water, migration, public health and food security through policy dialogue at international level and by shaping a more inclusive form of globalization that favours development. He is also responsible for fostering dialogue with multilateral organizations and allocating financial contributions to Switzerland’s 14 priority multilateral organizations. Christian Frutiger heads the Global Cooperation Department, which monitors international trends in development policy. He also provides support to the whole of the SDC in relation to information management.

Christian Frutiger joined the Federal Administration in 2019, having previously worked in the private sector and having gained extensive experience internationally in the social, humanitarian and development fields, working primarily for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Nestlé.

He joined Nestlé in 2007, where he was appointed public affairs manager covering human rights, water rights and multilateral relations. He was promoted to deputy head of public affairs in 2012 and vice president and global head of public affairs for the Nestlé Group in 2016.

Between 1994 and 1999 he carried out field missions on behalf of the ICRC. In 2000, on his return to Switzerland, he was appointed deputy head of operations for Eastern Europe and CIS before becoming head of unit within the External Resources Division.

Christian Frutiger is involved with the following institutions:

—International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD): Governor for Switzerland

—FIND: Member of the board and chair of the donor council

—2030 Agenda: Member of the Swiss national steering committee

—National Contact Point of Switzerland for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: Member of the advisory board

—International Municipal Investment Fund, Technical Assistance Facility: Member of the advisory council

—Low Carbon Cement Project (LCC): Member of the advisory board

—Unreasonable Group: Mentor

Professor George F. Gao is Director General of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He is also a Professor and Director in the Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology at the Institute of Microbiology of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); Vice-President of the Beijing Institutes of Life Science, CAS; Vice-President of the Chinese Society of Biotechnology; and President of the Asian Federation of Biotechnology. He was also the elected member/fellow of the CAS, the Third World Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Microbiology, European Molecular Biology Organization, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Society of Edinburgh and African Academy of Sciences.

Professor Gao obtained his PhD (DPhil) degree from Oxford University, UK and completed his post-doctoral work at both Oxford University and Harvard University. His research interests include enveloped virus entry and release, molecular immunology, public health policy and global health strategy. Using interdisciplinary methods, including virology, immunology and structural biology, Gao’s research revealed the origin and interspecies transmission mechanism of avian influenza virus including the virus entry mechanism and T-cell molecular recognition. As a leading figure for the control of infectious diseases in China and a world advocate voice of global public health strategy, He had been leading the China mobile laboratory Testing Team in the fight against Ebola Outbreak in Sierra Leone for three months in 2014.

Professor Gao has published more than 490 peer-reviewed scientific papers, 10 books or book chapters, and has applied for and obtained 25 UK, US and Chinese patents. He was awarded the TWAS Prize in Medical Science in 2012 and the Nikkei Asia Prize in 2014, and with numerous awards and prizes from Chinese government.

Dr David L. Heymann is Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Head of the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House, London.

Until March 2017, he was Chairman of the Board of Public Health England.  Previously he was the Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment, and Representative of the Director-General for polio eradication at the World Health Organization (WHO).  From 1998 to 2003 he was Executive Director of the WHO Communicable Diseases Cluster during which he headed the global response to SARS.

Before joining WHO, Prof. Heymann worked for 13 years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-Saharan Africa on assignment from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where, as well as supporting ministries of health in research, he participated in the first and second outbreaks of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever. Prior to joining CDC, he worked in India for two years in the WHO Smallpox Eradication Programme.

Prof. Heymann is an elected fellow of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (United States) and the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom), and has been awarded several public health awards. In 2009 Prof Heymann was appointed an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for service to global public health.

Shobana Kamineni is the Executive Vice-Chairman of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd., a pioneer in private healthcare in India and one of Asia’s foremost healthcare conglomerates.

Shobana also heads Apollo Pharmacy, India’s largest pharmacy chain with a pan-India network of over 3,500 stores and 25,000 employees serving more than 4,000,000 customers daily. She is a founder and a Whole Time Director on the Board of Apollo Munich Health Insurance, recognized as India’s best-specialized health insurance company for nine years consecutively.

As a lead director of Apollo’s research and innovation activities, and conscious of the convergence between the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries, and academia, Shobana championed the creation of a biobank – a catalogued library of anonymised bio-samples. The biobank was recognized as one of the top 10 ideas in life sciences by Time Magazine.

Shobana is also an Independent Director on the Boards of Blue Star Limited and Hero MotoCorp, and Vice-Chairman of the KEI Group, a diversified logistics, leisure and infrastructure business that she founded together with her husband.

An active member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Shobana was elected as its President from 2017-18. She was the first woman elected President of CII since its founding in 1895. Dedicated to ensuring that more women enter the workforce, she launched the Power of Parity Initiative. In 2018, Shobana was invited by the Indian Ministry of Corporate Affairs to become a member of the National Foundation for Corporate Governance (NGFC) Trust.

Passionate about inculcating a culture of wellness, Shobana has championed the establishment of a ‘Billion Hearts Beating’ – an NGO dedicated to educating fellow Indians on preventing heart disease and staying heart-healthy. She has been a recipient of prestigious national awards for entrepreneurship and leadership. The Women Economic Forum presented her with the ‘Businesswomen of the Decade’ award in recognition of her work in healthcare and empowerment of women. Shobana was bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Bryant University, USA in recognition of her life’s work in healthcare and pharmaceuticals as well as for her leadership role in business expansion in India.

Dr Carlos Morel’s career has been entirely dedicated to global health. A Brazilian physician, researcher and professor, Dr. Morel also created the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), assembling a team that conducts world-class work in molecular parasitology and biotechnology. He has an impressive publication record and has received numerous awards. He actively participated in the creation of several global programmes of research and development for neglected diseases: Global Forum for Health Research, Medicines for Malaria Venture, Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, becoming this Organization’s first Chairman of the Board, and Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative. He also witnessed the establishment of FIND at the 2003 World Health Assembly. Dr. Morel is currently Director, Center for Technological Development in Health (CDTS), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ).

Dr Michael Watson leads the team responsible for Global Immunisation Policy and Advocacy at Sanofi Pasteur, based in Lyon, France. He is a UK-trained physician who led the teams that developed and licensed Pediacel® in the UK and Gardasil® (Quadrivalent 6,11,16,18 HPV vaccine) in Europe and has worked on most classes of vaccines. Prior to his current role, he was Executive Vice President of Research and Development at the vaccine company Acambis, based in Cambridge, US. During this period, he oversaw the licensure of the smallpox vaccine ACAM2000®, and the research and development of Chimerivax® platform-based vaccines against Japanese encephalitis (completed phase 3) and West Nile fever, an M2e universal influenza vaccine (ACAM-FLU-A™), and the world’s most advanced C. difficile vaccine (ACAM-CDIFF™), as well as a number of pre-clinical stage projects, including an HSV-2 vaccine and a number of innovative new vaccine delivery platforms.