Dr Margaret Chan, obtained her medical degree from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. She joined the Hong Kong Department of Health in 1978, where her career in public health began.

In 1994, Dr Chan was appointed Director of Health of Hong Kong, the first woman to hold that position. In her nine-year tenure as director, she launched new services to prevent the spread of disease and promote better health. She also introduced new initiatives to improve communicable disease surveillance and response, enhance training for public health professionals, and establish better local and international collaboration. She effectively managed outbreaks of avian influenza and of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

In 2003, Dr Chan joined WHO as Director of the Department for Protection of the Human Environment. In June 2005, she was appointed Director, Communicable Diseases Surveillance and Response as well as Representative of the Director-General for Pandemic Influenza. In September 2005, she was named Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases. Dr Chan was elected to the post of Director-General on 9 November 2006. The Assembly appointed Dr Chan for a second five-year term at its sixty-fifth session in May 2012. Dr Chan’s last term began on 1 July 2012 and ended on 30 June 2017.

On 2 April 2020, Dr Chan was appointed as inaugural Dean of Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, China.

Rt Hon Helen Clark is a respected global leader on sustainable development and international co-operation. She served three successive terms as Prime Minister of New Zealand between 1999 and 2008. While in government, she led policy debate on a wide range of economic, social, environmental, and cultural issues, including sustainability and climate change. She was United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator for two terms from 2009 to 2017. In 2019 she became patron of The Helen Clark Foundation. She chairs a number of international organisations, including the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Professor Ilona Kickbusch is a leading voice on the political determinants of health, health promotion, global health governance, and pandemic preparedness. Over her distinguished career with the World Health Organization, she played a key role in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion and in establishing WHO’s Healthy Cities Network. She later directed the Global Health Division at Yale University School of Public Health and launched the first major Fulbright Programme on global health.

Professor Kickbusch advises governments, international organizations, NGOs, and the private sector on global health strategies and innovations. She has been actively involved in German G7 and G20 health activities and serves on several high-level commissions, including the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. She was co-lead of The Lancet and Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030: Growing Up in a Digital World. She is co-chair of the World Health Summit Council and a member of the steering committee of the WHS Academic Alliance Lancet Commission on Academic Responsibility.

Widely recognized for her leadership, she holds honorary positions at the University of Geneva, Charité Berlin, and Peking University. The Lancet has profiled her as a global health reformer. She has been awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the WHO Medal for her contributions to global health and diplomacy. A sought-after keynote speaker and adviser, she is also strongly committed to the empowerment of women.