Meet The Team
Meet the team
PVA is an alliance powered by its members. With a membership of over 100 organisations and hundreds of influential individuals, our work is driven by the collaboration, dedication and time given to the project by alliance members’ staff. In addition to these members and the alliance’s co-chairs, we also have a team who are employed to work directly for the alliance. You can learn more about them and their work below, and contact us on [email protected] where we can help direct your request.
You can also skip to learn more about: PVA’s structure, PVA’s administrative team, and the donors who make our work possible.
Our Co-Chairs
Winnie Byanyima
In addition to being PVA Co-Chair, Winnie is Executive Director of UNAIDS and an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. She is a passionate and longstanding champion of social justice and gender equality, and believes that health care is a human right.
Max Lawson
In addition to his role as PVA Co-Chair, Max is Head of Oxfam International’s Inequality Policy. He has previously held leadership positions at Oxfam Great Britain, and has helped author some of Oxfam’s most high-profile papers.
The Team
Simon Maina
Simon joined PVA as an intern and quickly became the team’s MVP. His keen intelligence and diligent attitude saw him swiftly master the organisation’s website, graphic design tools, and press outreach tools. He leads on the alliance’s regular updates and generally scares everyone with how quickly he picks up every task assigned to him.
Mohga Kamal-Yanni
Mohga has 40 years of experience in health and medicine policy, advocacy and programming in developing countries, with international and national health and development agencies including UN & multilateral agencies, NGOs and governments. She holds a medical degree and MPhil in healthcare and was awarded an MBE in 2009.
Piotr Kolczyński
Piotr specialises in EU pharmaceutical law and policy. He leads the Alliance’s engagement in EU’s policies affecting global health and access to medicines, represents the alliance in various policy forums and translating complex policy concepts to other team members.
Martie Mtange
Martie coordinates the PVA Africa initiatives such as stakeholder engagement, leading the secretariat of the PVA Africa Steering Group, Civil Society Organisation engagements, advocacy, communication and resource mobilization activities, strategic planning and ensuring everything happens on schedule.
Luz Marina Umbasia Bernal
Luz Marina manages the PVA chapter in LAC, with the support of the promoting group, builds the regional agenda related to the promotion of the right to health, promoting access to medicines and health technologies, intellectual property, transparency, and effective use of public funds as well as adequate preparation to respond to future pandemics, from a regional perspective. Luz Marina is a microbiologist, and lawyer with a Master’s in Foreign affairs and International business.
Chalita Auesiritrakul
Chalita updates the steering committee about social media engagements and broadens PVA’s voice through online platforms. She leads on online presence, enhancing the organization’s visibility and outreach on various social media channels. She also develops organizational materials and tools for events.
As part of the alliance’s commitment to tackling the Northern bias that exists in global health, upon receipt of its grants to fund work from 2021-2023, the People’s Vaccine Alliance Steering Committee agreed to allocate funding and staff with a direct focus on Global South regions that have traditionally been underfunded and underrepresented. The Regional Leads and their teams particularly focus on setting strategic direction for, and supporting, collaborating with and providing funds for their region. Each of the regions have their own network of organisations (some also part of the global network) and work independently driven by their own regional agendas rooted in the PVA global manifesto. You can follow them on Twitter at @PVA_Asia, @Vacunas_LAC and @PVA_Africa.
Structure of the alliance
The People’s Vaccine Alliance is led by a Steering Committee which is made up of the Alliance Co-chairs Winnie and Max, the Regional Leads and the Co-Chairs of the Alliance’s working groups. The Committee is responsible for approving the Alliance’s priorities, memberships and sign off structures among other responsibilities.
The working groups are a set of groups open to all alliance members. These cover key areas of the alliance such as Policy and Advocacy, and Campaigns and Media. The groups meet regularly, and are where the majority of the ongoing work and collaborations of the alliance takes place. Groups are led by two Co-chairs, one from the Global North and one from the Global South. There is also a fortnightly all-alliance call, open to all members, to collaborate and update across the whole alliance.
The groups sometimes form smaller sub-groups which focus on a particular area. These are narrower in focus, usually do not require a chair, and are often time bound, and disband after achieving their goal.
Funding for the alliance
The People’s Vaccine Alliance is grateful for the members that generously provided staff time and secured funding during its first year and to donors who make its growth and work still possible. The Alliance has received $3.7M from the following donors: Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Archewell Foundation, Open Society Foundations and Wellspring Philanthropic Fund.
A portion of these funds enable the work of the global alliance, another portion is managed directly by the regional teams and a further portion is dedicated to the PVA’s Agility Fund.
The Agility Fund is designed to provide rapid, small-to-medium sized grants of up to $15,000 to support work that helps to ensure equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. You can learn more about the Agility Fund here. To date, the PVA has run two rounds of the Agility Fund, in May 2022 and September 2022. It has successfully awarded over 30 grants to local organisations, enabling these to advocate and campaign for vaccine equity on local and national levels.