Ilona Kickbusch
Director of the Digital Transformations for Health LAB at the University of Geneva
Professor Kickbusch is a leading global health expert. She has contributed to many innovations, policies and educational initiatives during her distinguished career. She has received many prizes, honorary degrees and recognitions. She was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz) and the WHO Medal for contributions to global health. She is honorary professor at the Charité, Berlin.
She continues to advise the WHO and is a member of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. She served as a member of the path-breaking WHO Council on the Economic of Health for All. She was key instigator of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, WHOs Healthy Cities Network, WHO’s Health Behavior and School Children Survey, health literacy and Health in All Policies. She has always been committed to women’s health and rights and initiated the @wgh300 list of women leaders in global health.
She is the founder and Chair of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and was the director of the Global Health Division at Yale University School of Public Health. She has pioneered new approaches to leadership training in global health: she initiated the first executive training in Global Health Diplomacy and is program chair of the leaders in health network SCIANA at Salzburg Global. She publishes widely in distinguished journals.
She was co-chair of the Lancet FT Commission on “Governing health futures 2030: growing up in a digital world” and is now working on following through on its recommendations, especially addressing the digital determinants of health.
She chaired the international advisory board for the development of the German global health strategy, advised on the establishment of the WHO Hub on Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin and has been involved in German G7 and G20 activities relating to global health as well as the global health initiatives of the German EU presidency in 2020.
She works on a continuous basis with EU presidencies on global health and was advisor to the development of a revised EU Global Health Strategy. She is vice-president of the European Health Forum Gastein.
She is a political scientist with a PhD degree from the University of Konstanz.