Sue Desmond-Hellmann: How Ebola Tested the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | Big Think.

Sue Desmond-Hellmann: How Ebola Tested the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had no Ebola program when last year's crisis broke out in West Africa. CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann explains how the foundation acted on the fly to help fight the disease. "Ebola," says Dr. Desmond-Hellmann, "in many ways showed our foundation at its finest." She credits innovation, though perhaps not the type you're thinking of. The Gates Foundation's innovative strengths are tied to operations, communications, and logistics. It's one thing to have the tools to solve a problem; it's a whole other to have the wherewithal to swiftly engineer and execute an action plan. Dr. Desmond-Hellmann explains that this is where the foundation excels.

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SUE DESMOND-HELLMANN:

Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann is the Chief Executive Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a position she has held since May 2014. Dr. Desmond-Hellmann leads the foundation's efforts to promote equity for all people around the world. She sets strategic priorities, monitors results, and facilitates relationships with key partners while drawing on her past experience in health and medicine.

Prior to joining the foundation in 2014, she was Chancellor of the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), responsible for all aspects of the professional and graduate schools, medical center, and research programs. She oversaw an in-depth review of the University’s business model, developed a comprehensive strategic plan, supported the creation of research partnerships with industry leaders such as Pfizer and Bayer, and appointed UCSF’s first Vice Chancellor of Diversity and Outreach. She remains a full tenured professor at UCSF.

Prior to UCSF, she spent 14 years at Genentech, where she served in a number of roles, ending as President, Product Development (2004 – 2009). In March 2013, she was appointed to the board of directors at Facebook Inc., and since 2010 she has served on the board of directors of the Procter & Gamble Company.

Dr. Desmond-Hellmann completed her undergraduate education and medical studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, followed by clinical training at UCSF, where she served as associate adjunct professor of epidemiology and biostatistics. She is board-certified in internal medicine and medical oncology and holds a master’s degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. During her training at UCSF, she spent two years as a visiting faculty member at the Uganda Cancer Institute studying HIV/AIDS and cancer. She later worked for two years in private practice as a medical oncologist before returning to clinical research.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Sue Desmond-Hellmann: We do like technology and innovation at The Gates Foundation. But I have to say that when I hear technology or innovation, I often think about a widget or a new thing or an object. What I love about being at the foundation is our affinity for innovation comes in a lot of different flavors. It may come in product development; it may be a new vaccine or a new approach to how we store or keep cold vaccines or move vaccines around. It might be using phones to make sure that we have compliance or we can find people when they need to be vaccinated or their kids need some care. But one of my favorite forms of innovation here at the foundation are innovations in ways of operating.

Our passion is to solve problems. Let me give you an example. Last year when Ebola became a huge global issue because of the outbreak in West Africa, The Gates Foundation didn't have programs in those West African countries and we didn't have a program in Ebola. We had a relatively small emergency fund for things that often had been things like a flood or a tsunami or an earthquake. So I went to Bill and Melinda after many phone calls that me and my colleagues received about Ebola and suggested to Bill and Melinda that we should put up $50 million to try and help with Ebola. And Bill and Melinda graciously and rapidly agreed that we should do that. Well, having no programs and no work and seeing the enormity of the problem, we looked right away at a couple of things. One is how could we help? We could move money quickly, flexibly, and make sure that people on the ground in these West African countries could rapidly get the help they needed...

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