Ben Plumley Named CEO of Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation
San Francisco, January 7, 2010 - Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation announced today that Ben Plumley has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and will join the organization on February 1st 2010.Mr. Plumley is a health and development strategist and advocate, dedicated to the global fight against AIDS. Beginning in the late 1980s Plumley worked with London’s HIV positive community, and his career has subsequently spanned the private sector, United Nations, and non-governmental organizations. Most recently he was Vice President for Global Access and Partnerships with Johnson & Johnson, forging innovative public private collaborations to develop and deliver AIDS-related technological breakthroughs for developing countries. Plumley previously served as Director of the UNAIDS Executive Office and founded the Global Business Coalition against HIV/AIDS with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.
Plumley succeeds Dr. Eric Goosby, who was appointed Ambassador at Large and Global AIDS Coordinator with the U.S. Department of State in June 2009 where he oversees the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In putting forward Dr Goosby’s nomination, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton praised Pangaea’s model of partnering with and empowering developing countries to deliver sustainable HIV, TB and Malaria prevention and treatment strategies.
“Ben will expand and enhance the Pangaea model,” said Joseph Garrett, Chair of the Pangaea Board of Directors. “He is Pangaea’s new bridge between the vast unmet needs in the developing world and medical and policy expertise here in the U.S., where the pandemic and our compassionate response to it began over 25 years ago.”
“I’m tremendously excited to lead Pangaea at this crucial time in the global AIDS response,” said Plumley. “With its deep roots in San Francisco where many of the early battles against HIV were fought, Pangaea’s unique approach of working with countries to reach their most vulnerable groups has never been more needed. These populations – women and girls, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, commercial sex workers, and those who are incarcerated – are still too often marginalized and even persecuted. Yet they hold the key to preventing new epidemics from taking hold.”
Mr. Plumley concluded, “Our challenge is to help our partners bring the best medical and social programs to these populations, recognizing that solutions will not be effective or sustainable unless they are owned by local communities and respect their fundamental human rights.”
Contact:
Carl Whitaker
510.847.0599
cwhitaker@pgaf.org
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Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation is a non-profit consulting organization that supports in-country and international partners in the development of healthcare infrastructure for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention efforts. With a special focus on resource-poor settings and underserved populations, Pangaea helps its partners, including national health ministries, NGOs, universities, foundations, and corporations, strengthen HIV/AIDS treatment infrastructure and systems of care and develop new treatment capacity in order to increase access to care. For more information: www.pgaf.org.
