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 Global Team
Valentina Montanaro
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.
Christy Clemence
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.
Maaza Seyoum
Maaza brings her experiences as an Ethiopian who has lived and worked across the African continent to the PVA. Maaza now creates linkages and fosters meaningful collaboration across the alliance. She’s a dedicated spokesperson and enthusiastic communicator, ready to talk with almost anyone and always in search of a good story.
Julia Kosgei
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.
Nicky Wimble
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.
Joe Karp-Sawey
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lanz Espacio
Lanz leads the regional campaign work of PVA in Asia. He brings together members based in the region to echo the voice of marginalized peoples, bring public attention to worsening health and social inequalities and motivate key stakeholders in the region to support the Alliance’s demands.
Sofia Montenegro
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.
Barrack Owino
Barrack coordinates the PVA Africa activities, including CSO engagement, advocacy, membership drive and communications. He highlights African CSO’s work and country efforts and supports newly selected sub-grantees in COVID-19 advocacy work.
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.