Meet The Team

People's Vaccine

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

PVA Co-Chair

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

PVA Co-Chair

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 Global Team

 

Reach out to me about: Strategic partnerships with PVA, fundraising, campaigning ideas, engaging ambassadors and influentials, the alliance’s governance, and for any queries where you are unsure who to contact. Feedback and learning always welcome together with recommendations for Netflix crime series.

What I’m listening to: All cumbia, especially Peruvian psychedelic Chicha and old school reggae.

Valentina Montanaro

Global Campaign Head (Full Time)

Valentina brings high-level strategy, campaigning, and communication skills honed over 15 years of advocacy work. She oversees the team and leads on co-ordinating alliance members around campaigns, fundraising and generally organising and motivating everyone. No one understands how she manages to make it all happen.

Reach out to me about: Strategizing on how to leverage policy and advocacy windows for PVA-related work. And always enjoy connecting through various forms of art.

What I’m listening to: African Sauce - Sauti Sol, and a whole lot of podcasts!

Julia Kosgei

Policy & Advocacy Advisor (Part Time)

Julia brings over 13 years of experience in public health policy and advocacy to the Alliance. She leads PVA’s policy and advocacy work, a recognized expert PVA spokesperson on COVID-19 and pandemic preparedness and is a strong advocate for equitable access in the global south.

Image of Mohga Kamal-Yanni

Reach out to me about: Policy & technical health issues: innovation &access to medical technologies; financing & delivery of health care, health systems, PHC, pandemics, epidemics, outbreaks, NCDs; and multilateral, UN agencies, foundations, CS & govts.

What I’m listening to: Podcasts like Inside Science, New England Medical Journal and The Lancet, and Egyptian singer Fayza Ahmad and Mozart magic flute

Mohga Kamal-Yanni

Senior Global Health Policy Advisor

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.

Reach out to me about: EU (health) policy, pharmaceutical R&D, access inequalities and pricing of medicines, diversified manufacturing and new frameworks for pandemic preparedness and response.

What I’m listening to: Kendrick Lamar and audiobooks.

Piotr Kolczyński

EU Policy & Advocacy Advisor (Part Time)

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.

Reach out to me about: PVA alliance updates, website management, graphic design, social media assistance, and digital comms. Refer me to good tunes and those inequality podcasts.

What I’m listening to: Midnight train by Sauti Sol, Feminists for a People’s Vaccine podcast, and The Matt Walker Podcast.

Simon Maina

Junior Campaign Officer (Part Time)

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.

Reach out to me about: PVA’s social media, website and digital comms, telling people’s stories or brainstorming creative campaigns. DMs also open for dog pictures, recommendations for shark documentaries and thoughts on how to improve the alliance.

What I’m listening to: The Encanto soundtrack (still). And Sauti Sol thanks to Simon and Maaza’s attempts to make me cooler.

Christy Clemence

Communications & Digital Lead (Full Time)

Christy leads the alliance’s digital communications – driving PVA Global’s design, content, comms and creative campaigns. She works closely with regional colleagues and alliance members to highlight members’ works, drive projects forward and bring the alliance together around shared communication aims.

Reach out to me about: Journalist requests, interview bids, story ideas, news tips, and media consultancy. Always on hand to help the PVA hive mind get into press. Send me good tunes.

What I’m listening to: Collective, Run the Jewels, Sports Team, Emma-Jean Thackray, Kojey Radical, Justice, Honey Dijon.

Joe Karp-Sawey

Senior Media Advisor (Full Time)

Joe brings years of media experience working for trade unions, political campaigns and global business. He leads PVA’s global media, working closely with members to ensure global coverage and swift reactions to breaking news, and is the driving force behind much of the alliance’s editorial work.

Reach out to me about: Creative campaign ideas - particularly around the mRNA hubs - and celebrity outreach.

Nicky Wimble

Creative & Celebrities Consultant (Part Time)

Bringing a wealth of experience and creativity, Nicky leads on celebrity partnerships and developing creative content for PVA campaigns. She is the undisputed queen of making the impossible possible.

Our Regional Leads

 

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. Therefore, in addition to the above staff who support the work of all members across the world, the brilliant 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 region 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.

Reach out to me about: PVA Asia-related work and matters and coming HLMs meeting in NYC.

What I’m listening to: Wide range of music, almost everything with notes, beats, and rhythms.

Pattariya (Aom) Maleehom

Asia Regional Campaign Coordinator

Aom is a regional Coordinator for PVA Asia, coordinating the Asia-related work between PVA Global and other related stakeholders, taking the lead in convening alliances, meetings, and organizing activities and actions. She is also a Programme Officer at APCASO, the host organization for PVA Asia.

Reach out to me about: Joining the regional alliance or for any information about PVA LAC. You can also follow me on social networks (@smontenegrom) where I usually talk about Guatemalan politics, although sometimes I disconnect to live outside the virtual world.

What I’m listening to: The amazing Brittany Howard with Sound & Color, no one can be as uplifting and enhancing on a Monday morning as she is.

Sofia Montenegro

Regional Leader for Latin America and the Caribbean

Sofia manages the Latin American chapter of the alliance (PVA LAC). Her role is to connect PVA LAC organizations with other regions and PVA Global, to bring the region’s diverse perspectives to our collective advocacy work.

Reach out to me about: Partnerships with PVA Africa stakeholders, writing from the African public health perspective and fun activities to do in Nairobi

What I’m listening to: Cuando me enamoro (Andrea Bocelli), House (Far Caspian), Mina Nawe (Soa Matrix), No Crime (Nonso Amadi)

Martie Mtange

People's Vaccine Alliance Africa Coordinator

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.

Fiscal Management and Legal Administration

The People’s Vaccine Alliance is additionally supported by Frontline AIDS, the alliance member that serves as the fiscal and legal host for the alliance. The PVA would like to acknowledge and thank Frontline AIDS’s support, in particular Paddy Lawrance, Amy Slonje, Olga Golichenco and Serge Mengue, who provide an invaluable contribution to the alliance through their work.

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.