A Letter from Our Board: Global Health Corps’ Leadership Transition
Dear community,
Over the next 12-months, our co-founder Barbara Bush will transition out of her day-to-day role as CEO and onto the Board of Directors, making way for new leadership in an exciting new era for Global Health Corps (GHC). Under Barbara’s outstanding leadership over the past eight years, what started as a small seed of an idea — that bold leadership could be the lever for change in global health — has grown into a vibrant global movement for health equity: nearly 750 diverse, visionary young leaders and growing, effecting real time change to build equitable health systems worldwide.
We’re excited for this moment of change, as it signifies that our movement for health equity has truly hit a milestone. What was only recently a start-up organization is stable and sustainable enough to bring in a new operator. Over the better part of the last decade, GHC’s annual budget has increased to $7 million and the organization’s staff has grown twentyfold in size in its offices in East Africa (Rwanda and Uganda), Southern Africa (Malawi and Zambia), and the United States. GHC has grown from a cohort of 22 fellows from eight countries in 2009 to a cohort of 140 fellows from 19 countries in 2016. Meanwhile, our impressive and expansive alumni community continues to deliver impact, whether on Ebola relief in Sierra Leone, human-centered design in Rwanda, or mobile clinic operation in Washington, D.C.
Barbara will remain at the helm of GHC through a successful onboarding of a new CEO, and will remain closely involved in GHC’s next strategic direction as an active board member. We are incredibly proud of the work that GHC is doing around the world to develop a new paradigm of health leadership, and of the trails that our young GHC leaders are blazing across issue areas and health systems in the name of health equity.
When GHC began back in 2009, Barbara and her co-founders, earliest champions, and intrepid first class of fellows were driven by a vision of a world in which health equity is a reality. That vision is as bright and clear as ever, and we have a strong track record to show that we’re growing closer to realizing it every single day.
We are confident that GHC’s next leader will build on the incredible foundation that Barbara has set. As we look ahead to GHC’s ten-year anniversary in 2019, we are excited about the future of both the organization and the global health equity movement.
Sincerely,
Global Health Corps’ Board of Directors
