The Global Fund Selection Process for a New Executive Director
02 November 2006
Guatemala City - The Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will continue its search for a new Executive Director, building on the work done so far to select a candidate who meets the Global Fund’s wide range of challenges.
The delay in selection of a new Executive Director will have no impact on the daily work of the Global Fund. It will continue its business of funding effective grants around the world, which prevent disease and are saving thousands of lives, under the leadership of the current Executive Director, Richard Feachem.
The Global Fund's Board is a unique partnership, with representatives of nongovernmental organizations, the private sector (including businesses and foundations) and communities affected by the three diseases, sharing an equal voice and vote with government representatives. Voting members of the Board are composed of donor (donor governments, private foundations and private sector) and recipient (recipient governments, nongovernmental organizations from the global north and global south, and affected communities) voting groups with ten representatives in each group.
The Board emphasizes the importance of achieving broad consensus for its decisions and rarely resorts to formal votes. When a vote is required, the voting system demands a two thirds majority within each voting group for any decision to be made demonstrating the spirit of partnership. After intense consultations to seek consensus, the Board was not able to create the necessary broad support of a two third majority in each voting group to decide on one final candidate. However, the Board in its deliberations stressed that each of the five candidates presented were of extremely high caliber and quality and its inability to reach a decision was not a reflection of candidate strength. Candidates reached an overall two thirds majority without achieving a two thirds majority in each voting group.
The Global Fund Board created a Nomination Committee reflecting Board composition for the recruitment of Executive Director at its meeting last April.
The four main criteria set for the candidates were:
a. Leadership and strategic management
b. International experience with health and development
c. Experience working with boards of directors
d. Availability
The Committee engaged an executive research firm to assist with the recruitment process. The recruitment was advertised in eleven publications around the world in five languages. By the deadline of 7 August, the search firm created an initial long list and the Committee selected a list of 12 candidates for interviews. These were conducted in mid September, from which a short list of five were presented to the Board.
The Board is now further developing its selection process, unified in its commitment to complete the recruitment in a way that is rapid and transparent, and that learns from this experience.