Updates

John Grove appointed as the new Chief Evaluation and Learning Officer

21 July 2022

The Global Fund is very pleased to announce the appointment of John Grove as its new Chief Evaluation and Learning Officer, starting on 1 October 2022.

The Chief Evaluation and Learning Officer is a new function that results from a decision by the Global Fund Board in November 2021 to evolve the Global Fund Independent Evaluation Function. John will establish and lead the new Evaluation Unit, which will oversee independent evaluations under the oversight of an Independent Evaluation Panel and will have a dual reporting line to the Independent Evaluation Panel and the Office of the Executive Director, Peter Sands. The selection process involved representatives from the Global Fund’s Strategy Committee, Technical Evaluation Reference Group, and the Secretariat. This new role comes at a critical time, to evaluate the past strategy and implement a new approach for the future.

With over two decades of global expertise in public health and monitoring and evaluation, John joins the Global Fund from WHO where he has been the founding Director of Quality Assurance for Norms and Standards for the last three years. Prior to that, he was WHO’s Director of Information, Evidence and Research.

Before joining WHO, John was Deputy Director for Evidence and Policy in the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). He was responsible for the investment portfolio on evidence and research and also worked within the organization to set strategy and guide related health analytics, in addition to being a representative on evidence and policy with the foundation’s external partners, including the UN system. He also served on the global health strategy team in the Office of the President and worked across HIV, TB, pneumonia, diarrhea, and immunization teams on strategy development and evaluation.

Prior to BMGF, John was with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for 8 years in team lead and section chief roles based in Tanzania, Zambia, and Cote d’Ivoire supervising disease surveillance, program monitoring and evaluation, health informatics, nurse, lab, and medical training programs, and as a lead US diplomat with host country governments on technical assistance and resource negotiation.

John is originally from the United States and holds a PhD in health services research and evaluation from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, a Master’s in applied anthropology from the University of San Francisco, and a Bachelor’s in international relations from Kent State University.