Deb Derrick

Deb Derrick is a global health thought leader with nearly two decades of policy and international development experience. As President of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, she leads the organization in educating and engaging U.S. decision makers on the lifesaving work of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The U.S. is the largest donor to the Global Fund, the world’s most powerful tool in the fight against these three diseases, and Friends has been instrumental to securing the ongoing strong support of the U.S. executive branch and Congress on a bipartisan basis.

Ms. Derrick previously served as a Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she directed approximately $15 million annually in advocacy contracts and grants with the U.S. government and worked on the foundation’s highest-profile global health projects.

In this work, she facilitated the foundation’s partnership with the U.S. government to eradicate polio and to fund and strengthen the Global Fund and GAVI (formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation). In addition, she coordinated global health-related visits by the foundation’s leadership and co-chairs to Washington, D.C., and Africa, and worked with Melinda Gates to help build bipartisan support in the U.S. for expanded access to women’s health care.

Prior to her work at the Gates Foundation, Ms. Derrick served as Executive Director of the Better World Campaign, leading efforts to foster a stronger relationship between the U.S. and the United Nations through outreach and advocacy. Earlier in her career, she served as a senior advisor at the UN, at the State Department and on Capitol Hill, where she worked on the House Appropriations and Budget committees, devising strategies to contend with budget constraints. She also worked as a producer at C-SPAN.

Ms. Derrick received her master’s degree in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Duke University. She has lived, studied and worked in the UK, South Africa, Poland and Canada. She and her family now reside in Arlington, VA.