PSS Action Lab Champions

Amit N. THAKKER is a medical doctor, a visionary entrepreneur, industry captain and ground-breaking pioneer in the integration of the private sector within the health system in Africa. He is currently the Executive Chairman of Africa Health Business and the Africa Healthcare Federation and a Director with AMREF Flying Doctors (Kenya) and Seven Seas Technologies. Africa Health Business is an African health consultancy, advisory and investment firm that aims to improve access to quality affordable healthcare in Africa.

Dr. Amit N. Thakker has been a groundbreaking pioneer in the integration of the private sector within the health system in Africa. He actively supports governments, corporates, health organisations and development partners to foster effective Public Private Partnership initiatives towards improved health outcomes. As an active member of several institutions including international business group YPO Gold (Nairobi Chapter), Dr Thakker also chairs the University of Nairobi Alumni Medical Chapter & serves as an advisor to Asia Africa Investing & Consulting ltd.

Dr Thakker received an Executive Master of Business Administration degree in 2007 from National Insurance Academy in India and a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1997 from the University of Nairobi. He was the 2017 recipient of the Best CEO award by Titans Global in the Business and Professional Services category, the 2004 Chairman’s Award by the Kenya Medical Association and the 1999 Best Male Entrepreneur of the Year award by Rotary International.

FOUNDER

Francis (Frank) is the Executive Director of Open Phences (a Health PPE (Public Private Engagement) and PPC (Public Private Collaboration) knowledge generation, management and dissemination hub) and a Senior Lecturer in Healthcare Management at the Strathmore Business School. He has been working with the World Bank Group as a health specialist since 2013, supporting various programs in Kenya, South Sudan, the East African Community, and Francophone Africa.

He previously worked as a research advisor for Aidspan, supporting HIV, TB and Malaria programs through analysis of Global Fund programs across 152 countries. Prior to that, he spent six years as a health systems researcher at the KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Nairobi. Frank also lectured in the MSc Health Economics course at the School of Economics-University of Nairobi, and taught Health Policy and Management to the Master of Pharmacy class, also of the University of Nairobi.

Frank holds a PhD in Health Systems and Policy (University of London – London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK and the Open University-UK), a Masters in Public Health (also from University of London), and a Pharmacy degree (University of Nairobi).

Kidist is a strategic leader experienced in management and administrative roles with a demonstrated history of working in financial, education and in healthcare domains. Kidist is also a social entrepreneur with professional skills in design thinking, strategic operations, executing education projects, sales & marketing, fundraising, creativity, corporate communications, team management and social enterprise venture start-up arena. She believes that investments in innovation, education and social enterprise ventures are key drivers to economic development.

Kidist is the founder and CEO of YeneHealth, is an early stage, fem-tech startup that is focused on adolescent girls and women’s sexual & reproductive health (SRH). As the first of its kind in Ethiopia, YeneHealth aims to make SRH and Family Planning (FP) information and products accessible and available for its users. Through its digital platform, YeneHealth strives to address the unmet need for family planning and maternal health while supporting adolescent girls and women gain self-agency over their bodies. YeneHealth brings compassionate, stigma-free, confidential, and convenient self-manageable tools and resources for women in their community.

Dr. Fikre is a highly skilled senior strategist, global public Health expert, and business entrepreneur with more than 15 years’ International Healthcare industry experience across North America, Middle East and Africa. Based out of Ethiopia since 2016, Dr. Fikre is a leading advisor and consultant in private sector in health, innovations in health (communicable and Non-communicable diseases) and PPPs, having significantly contributed to the development and launch of a Health and Economic Report commissioned by the UNECA during the African Business in Health Forum in February 2019. She was also invited to speak on behalf of the private sector in health to the newly appointed IFC and World Bank presidents as well as a panel speaker in a Kigali conference on the importance of CSR and SME contributions to health. She has moderated a panel on the Economic Commission for Africa’s report entitled “healthcare and at the inaugural Africa Business and Investment Forum, held on January 30, 2018 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which hosted Heads of State from five African countries and over 150 CEOs and senior executives of key U.S and African companies.

Dr. Fikre supported the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia as a private sector health consultant under the World Bank Group and advised key private sector health leaders in Ethiopia on selected innovations including innovation in Reproductive Maternal and Neonatal Health, Communicable disease and noncommunicable disease and growth strategy scope. She is currently the Managing Partner at CHS Advisory, where she manages strategy, business planning and project management. Maraki is fluent in Amharic, English and French. She holds a PhD in healthcare management, and a Master of Science in Epidemiology from the University of Toronto in Canada.

Dr. Mariam M. Ongara is a Medical Doctor with a Master of Arts in Programme/Project Management. She currently works as the National Public Private Partnership Coordinator at the Tanzania Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. Mariam coordinates efforts of partners in the health sector, encourage public private partnerships, facilitates creative and innovative approaches, and chairs the PPP Technical Working Group on behalf of the MoH.

Previously, Dr. Ongara worked as the Hospital Reforms Programme Coordinator, District Medical Officer for more than 10 years. She was also a general practitioner in several hospitals in Tanzania. Dr. Ongara has also attended several short courses and workshops on Public Private Partnerships and Public Private Cooperation.

Dr Chibi works for the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, as Regional Innovation Adviser. His main role is coordinating implementation of the Transformation Agenda, whose objective is to accelerate the implementation of WHO reforms within the African Region. He is the brains behind the first WHO Innovation Challenge that was successfully launched in October 2018, which in just 4 weeks attracted over 2500 applications from innovators from the African continent and abroad. He is also serving as a chair of the Regional UN Interagency technical experts on leveraging emerging technologies and digital transformation for inclusive growth and development in Africa.

Before moving to the Regional Office, he worked as Technical Officer in WHO based in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was part of the team coordinating the implementation of the Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation Management and Intellectual Property. His passion and career is committed to international development that is geared to implement sustainable innovative home-grown solutions to address health challenges in Africa.

He holds an Executive MBA in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from Switzerland. He has a PhD in Medical Biotechnology from Cape Town, South Africa. He has more than 15 years’ experience in research, development and innovation in the health sector.

Moses Alobo is a Kenyan physician, public health researcher and social entrepreneur. He leads the African Academy of Sciences Grand Challenges Africa Programme. The programme is the innovation and entrepreneurship pillar at the African Academy of Sciences. He specialises in the implementation of health research in resource-limited countries, including programmes in vaccinology and antimicrobial resistance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Moses led the African Academy of Sciences' response to coronavirus disease.

He has over 15 years’ experience leading fundraising efforts and delivering global health interventions and innovations.His previous posting was a key interface between the African Research Centres and GSK’s Africa NCD Open Lab where he supported scientists to design and conduct locally relevant research proposals, their associated technology transfer, and capacity strengthening in NCD research. Moses has experience in implementing research in resource-limited settings in the fields of vaccinology, oncology, antibiotics resistance, HIV, leishmaniasis, asthma, breast cancer, and renal anaemia. He has worked for GSK, Hoffman La Roche, and Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative.

Moses has not only implemented quality health management and research projects in 14 different countries in Sub-Saharan Africa but is also a social entrepreneur. He delivers to patients much-needed health programs and health research grounded in best practice by using evidence-based medicine to solve current public health problems.

Dr. Nelson Gitonga is a leading health professional in Kenya and Eastern Africa with over 23 years’ experience. He is the founder and CEO of Insight Health Advisors, a health management advisory firm. His client base is diverse, ranging from private health sector companies to development partners such as USAID, IFC/WB, KfW, DFID and consulting/development firms seeking African expertise (Pharmaccess, Abt Associates, FHI 360, QED GH-Tech, ECORYS & Deloitte). His practice covers health systems strengthening, PPP's, health policy/ regulatory reforms, demand-side health care financing (including public and private health insurance, vouchers and micro-insurance) and health infrastructure & technology. Drawing from his knowledge, experience and vast networks in the health sector, he also provides advisory services to various entities seeking to invest in the health sector in EA.

In the past 15 years he has been involved in efforts to bring together the public and private health sectors to address health systems and service delivery gaps in Eastern and Southern Africa. He has contributed to the design of various Health Care Financing reforms in Eastern Africa and worked with GE Healthcare EA and various MOH’s in the region contributing to the development of healthcare infrastructure & technology.

Dr. Gitonga started his career in clinical practice in both public and private health sector for 9 years before transitioning to healthcare management. He holds an MBChB from the University of Nairobi, PG Diplomas in Health Systems Management from the University of London, Galilee International Management Institute (Israel) and National Insurance Academy (India). He is an alumnus of the IESE/SBS AMP Program.

Exercising oversight over Spark Health Africa’s Transformative Programs, Tendai’s role is to provide strategic direction and thought leadership for establishing Spark Health Africa as a leader in building resilient health teams in developing countries. In his previous role as Senior Systems Improvement Advisor, Tendai was directly responsible for supervising Spark Health Africa’s in-country mentors to ensure technical excellence, within-budget and on-time delivery of leadership and team-based priorities of our partner governments. Tendai also leads Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning efforts to measure program performance and document work culture shifts related to Health Systems Strengthening and dissemination of stories of impact as appropriate at regional, national and sub-national level.

Tendai received his undergraduate Degree in Risk Management & Insurance from the National University of Science and Technology in Zimbabwe in 2006. Tendai is a Demographer, having attained an MPhil. in Demography with the Centre for Actuarial Research (CARe) at the University of Cape Town in 2012, where he focused on classical methods for estimating maternal mortality in high-HIV/AIDS settings. This immersion in the shortcomings and underutilization of population-level data by governments to inform public health issues led Tendai, in 2013, to join the Clinton Health Access Initiative in South Africa as an Access-to-medicines Analyst seconded to the South Africa National Department of Health. In the same year, Tendai transitioned to the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Zimbabwe to lead a three-year, WHO-funded implementation science research program focusing on piloting the lifelong protocol (Option B+) for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Zimbabwe.

Tesfaye is a senior strategy and health financing advisor. He has substantial experience on health system development particularly on health care financing. He has 15+ years of experience in Governmental and non-governmental international organisations. As part of his previous global research advisor role with Marie Stope International based in London, he led MSI research, healthcare financing interventions, and held a global technical assistance role, supporting MSI research programmes in Africa and Asia.

Tesfaye now works with World Bank Ethiopia as STC supporting Ministry of Health of Ethiopia as Senior Strategy and health financing advisor. He has been engaged with various strategic document development including the current Health Sector Transformation Plan (2020 to 2025). He developed a new interactive fiscal space for health analysis tool, which brings massive change on understanding required and available resources for various programs. Tesfaye has substantial experience in health programs costing and efficiency analysis for various countries. His current focus is on performance-based financing and health system sustainability to increase access to equitable essential health service packages in developing countries. He has substantial knowledge and experience with many of Africa countries health systems structure, policies and sectoral reform processes.

Robert Karanja is the co-founder and Chief Innovations Officer at Villgro Africa, an early stage business incubator and impact investor that seeks to support start-ups with a global social impact focus in the African region. He has a career spanning 20 years in the fields of academia, research, development, technological innovation and development entrepreneurship in global health across the East African region. His key skills lie in biomedical research, strengthening health systems, intellectual property, technology commercialization, social entrepreneurship, and impact investment.

Robert started out as a volunteer at the International Centre for Insect and Ecology (ICIPE) where he assisted in developing horticultural pesticides based on biological control. He then proceeded to the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) where, as a Master’s student, doubled as a research associate. At KEMRI, he helped develop global health R&D proposals, and implemented and managed projects. He later became a full scientist at the same institution publishing more than 30 peer reviewed publications and conference papers on biomedical research and global health development. He was also the Academic Director of the Bio-entrepreneurship at Strathmore Business School in Kenya before co-founding Villgro Africa, where he became the founding CEO between April 2015 and June 2020. In this role, he developed and built donor relationships resulting in an increase in annual budget by more than sixfold.

Dr Robert Karanja holds a PhD degree in Parasitology and Entomology from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology’s Institute of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases.