LEADERSHIP

---

Dr. Dimitrios Kalogeropoulos is Chief Executive at the Global Health Digital Innovation Foundation, UK, and Health Executive in Residence at the UCL Global Business School for Health. A recognised leader in global health, he brings over three decades of experience in health governance and digital innovation. With a PhD in Artificial Intelligence in Medicine since the 1990s, he has pioneered the application of AI to systems medicine and advised global organisations—including the World Bank, WHO, PAHO, the European Commission, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—on health, technology, and governance.

He has advanced global health by fostering open innovation ecosystems and systems capital across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. His policy contributions include pivotal roles in the Healthy China 2030 initiative, jointly led by the Chinese government, the World Bank Group, and WHO, and in shaping the EU AI Act. As a member of the EU AI Office’s Plenary Forum, he supports the development of the first General-Purpose AI Code of Practice. He contributes to initiatives ensuring AI delivers societal value and mitigates systemic inequities, including his role on the Stakeholders Advisory Group of the International Observatory on Information and Democracy.

Dr. Kalogeropoulos is a member of the IEEE European Public Policy Committee and Global Policy Caucus, and a founding member of the International Advisory Committee for the IEEE Global Standardised Registry for Medical Mobile Health Applications, where he chairs the Ethics Subcommittee. His participation in the WHO-led Health Data Collaborative’s Working Group on Digital Health and Climate Policy highlights his commitment to evidence-based solutions for global challenges.

He founded and chairs the IEEE SA Industry Connections program IC24-015 on AI for Public Health and Climate-Resilient Health Systems and leads the P3493.1™ Working Group to develop a Standard Framework for Secure, Compliant, Coordinated, and Inclusive Healthcare Data Recycling, with an initial focus on cancer care. This initiative bridges policy and innovation to enable ethical, sustainable secondary use of healthcare data.

With extensive experience, including his tenure at IBM, Dr. Kalogeropoulos advises start-ups and organisations globally, offering strategic insights into digital transformation and policy alignment. A sought-after speaker, he champions innovation, equity, and sustainability, collaborating with accelerator programs like CancerX and the WHO/Europe Strategic Partnership Initiative for Data and Digital Health.  

Professor Paul Barach, B.Med.Sci, MD, MPH, Maj (Ret.) is a passionate believer in smart health information technology to improve the safety and quality of healthcare. He is double boarded anesthesiologist and critical care physician-scientist, trained at Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Boston City Hospital. Paul is an elected member of the lead international honorary society the Association of University Anesthesiologists. Previously, he held the position of Chief Quality Officer and Associate Chief Medical Officer for the University of Miami and Jackson Memorial Hospital. He had held prominent advisory positions nationally and internationally overseeing quality and patient safety, telemedicine development, innovation technology and adoption, and population health programs. Paul is former member of ASA and WFSA Patient Safety and Quality committees, and Chair of the Patient Safety Commission for the World Society of Intravenous Anesthesia. Paul is Associate Editor of Telehealth and Telemedicine journal and has published more than three hundred papers in scientific journals and 5 books. Paul has been regularly funded for his research grants and his work has led to over $16,000,000 as PI or Co-PI (of more than $120,000,000 in group funding) in federal competitive grant funding from the US(NIH/AHRQ/HRSA), EC (FP-7, Horizon, Erasmus), Australian (NHMRC, ARC), UK (NIHR), Dutch and Norwegian Federal Agencies. Paul holds numerous US and international academic part time positions as Professor at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna, Austria; Honorary Professorship, University of Birmingham, UK; Lecturer and senior advisor to Dean, Jefferson College of Population Health; Visiting Professor Milan Polytechnic; Visiting Professor and Honorary Professor at the National Cancer Center in Seoul, Korea, and Visiting Professor, Riphah University, Pakistan and at MUHAS, Tanzania. He has given courses in Team Leadership in Disaster Management; Leadership during Crisis; Preparation of Health Systems for Crisis, Patient Safety, Human Factors, Digital Health systems design, Individual and Community Resilience. He advises several digital health companies.

Dr. Maryam Lustberg is a distinguished physician-scientist specializing in breast cancer care and research. As the Director of the Center for Breast Cancer at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center, and Chief of Breast Medical Oncology, she leads comprehensive breast cancer programs and oversees a diverse portfolio of clinical trials.

Dr. Lustberg’s research focuses on improving long-term outcomes for breast cancer patients, particularly in the areas of treatment-related side effects and survivorship. She is actively investigating novel blood-based biomarkers to identify recurrence and treatment toxicity earlier. Her work is supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute and she collaborates extensively with researchers worldwide.

Nationally recognized for her expertise, Dr. Lustberg serves on several committees for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and is the President-Elect of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC). She is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of Cancer Survivorship.

Dr. Lustberg completed her medical degree and residency at the University of Maryland, followed by fellowships in medical oncology and breast medical oncology at The Ohio State University. She also holds a Master’s in Public Health from The Ohio State University, focusing on clinical investigation and translational research in breast cancer.

Dr. Stefaan G. Verhulst is Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer as well as Director of GovLab's Data Program.

He is also, among other positions and affiliations, the Editor-in-Chief of Data & Policy, an open-access journal by Cambridge University Press; the research director of the MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance; Chair of the Data for Children Collaborative with Unicef; and a member of the High-Level Expert Group to the European Commission on Business-to-Government Data Sharing. 

He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Yale University, Central European University and serves on numerous (advisory) boards, including Sparks and Honey, Center for Media, Data and Society, among others. He is also Founder and Curator in Chief of The Living Library. In 2018 he was recognized as one of the 10 Most Influential Academics in Digital Government globally (as part of the Top 100 in Digital Government) by the global policy platform Apolitical. At The GovLab,  Stefaan Verhulst has developed and leads a range of impactful research initiatives that contribute to an enhanced understanding and improved practice of using data, science, and technology for decision and policymaking.

Before joining NYU full time, Verhulst spent more than a decade as Chief of Research for the Markle Foundation, where he continues to serve as Senior Advisor. At Markle, an operational foundation based in New York City focused on leveraging and investing in new technologies to address critical public needs, he was responsible for overseeing strategic research on all the priority areas of the Foundation including, for instance: transforming health care using information and technology, re-engineering government to respond to new national security threats, improving people’s lives in developing countries by connecting them to information networks, changing education through information technology among other domains.

Previously at Oxford University, he was the UNESCO Chairholder in Communications Law and Policy for the UK where he co-founded and was the Head of the Program in Comparative Media Law and Policy, He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Socio Legal Studies and the Socio-Legal Fellow of Wolfson College, and is still an emeritus fellow at Oxford. He also taught several years at the London School of Economics. He was also Founder and Co-Director of the International Media and Info-Comms Policy and Law Studies (IMPS) at the University of Glasgow School of Law. 

He has published widely - including seven books and numerous papers - and features regularly in the Harvard Business Review, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Project Syndicate, The Conversation and other important outlets. He is asked regularly to present his findings at international conferences including TED, Collision, the World Data Forum and CogX. 

Numerous organizations have sought his counsel as advisor or consultant  - including the WorldBank; IDB, USAID, DFID, IDRC, AFP, the European Commission, Council of Europe, the World Economic Forum, UNICEF, OECD, Un-OCHA, UNDP and several other national and international bodies.

Martin Le Jeune is an experienced communications and public policy consultant who specialises in the impact of AI on the provision of public services, including healthcare and the NHS. 

Martin has been working with GDHIF for nearly two years, and is responsible for profile and fund-raising efforts, particularly through ensuring that politicians, opinion-formers and other stakeholders are aware of the GDHIF mission, and the improvements that properly deployed AI can make to healthcare outcomes, particularly for those in disadvantaged communities.

Martin's consultancy career has led him to provide communications and policy advice to companies like Google, Meta, DeepMind, and Vodafone, as well as public sector bodies such as the Electoral Commission, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. 

He specialises in developing case-studies and policy proposals for his clients which can then be discussed and refined in discussions with MPs, Ministers, civil servants, and members of the broader policy community.

Martin's career began in the civil service, as an official in the Cabinet Office, where he managed legislation, worked closely with ministers, and was on the staff of the extremely influential advisory body, the Committee on Standards in Public Life. He subsequently moved into consultancy, including founding his own agency and working in top twenty agences at senior levels.

Martin is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies and regularly writes for the campaigning group, Popular Conservatism.  

Dimitri Varsamis PhD is an independent advisor on digital and clinical strategy for health-tech companies and public institutions. 
More recently he was the EMEA Healthcare Director at the NYSE-listed AI and Automation software company, UiPath.

Until 2023, he was NHS England’s Head of Digital Innovation Delivery. Previously, as Senior Policy Lead for Digital Primary Care, he oversaw the national contract and financing to transform the digital services offered through all 6,500 GP practices. He spent a total of 17 years on national policy and local service redesign.

Internationally, he represented the UK Government on the EU Joint Action on Chronic Diseases and led the Policy Summary on reducing mortality in England with the WHO European Observatory. As a 2019 Churchill Fellow, he researched the incentives and levers for digitising primary care in Australia, New Zealand and USA. He also served at the UK Department for International Trade.
He teaches at executive leadership courses at the Business Schools of City University and Imperial College. 

Dimitri is the Treasurer of the IEEE SA Industry Connections program IC24-015 on AI for Public Health and Climate-Resilient Health Systems.  

Dr. Nana Bit-Avragim is a physician-scientist, strategic health and biotech leader, and the next-gen healthcare ecosystem builder. She loves solving challenges and building solutions from scratch. 

To translate the latest global technological developments into life sciences and align it with the healthcare industry, Nana has successfully developed and executed a broad scope of innovative programs and partnerships between SMEs, NGOs and academia in her previous roles as Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Charité Foundation and Head of Digital Health & Life Sciences program at the German hub of Singularity University, an executive education organization based on NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley. Nana’s current focus is on building and implementing blockchain solutions in healthcare and life sciences at the DHL Blockchain Center of Excellence. As an advisor and mentor for several EIT Health startups and early-stage ventures from Switzerland, Germany, UK and Israel, Nana applies her talents to offer both a strategic vision as well as concrete actions to achieve. Nana enjoys communicating across borders and cultures and she loves tweeting about digital health, open innovations and open science.  

Kristina (Krissy) Celentano, MPP, PMP, is Owner and Consultant at Koralaide Consulting LLC. Krissy is a results-driven digital health expert with over ten years of experience working on policy, governance, coordination, technical assistance, project management, and strategic planning in high, low and middle-income countries. Prior to starting Koralaide, Krissy served as Senior Health Information Systems Advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) where she chaired the Agency Digital Health Work Group, oversaw a mobile health application and supported the development of an agency digital health strategy and vision. Prior to USAID, she served in several capacities at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. While at ONC, Krissy worked with on-the-ground implementers of health information exchange, electronic health records and innovative technologies to support health system strengthening, practice transformation, and systems modernization. Krissy is an Adjunct Instructor of Health Informatics at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and George Washington University. She is also a Global Digital Health Network Advisory Board emeritus. 

Dr. Hesham Gaafar, MBBS, MPH, MSPH, is an experienced physician and public health policy consultant specializing in precision health and health systems. He is deeply committed to fostering outcomes-based innovations and policy reforms in resource-constrained settings. As a health systems specialist, he has worked extensively on strengthening and improving systems with a focus on cancer, climate health, research, and digital health.

Dr. Gaafar is a registered physician in both the United Kingdom and Egypt. He obtained his medical degree from Cairo University, a Master of Global Public Health with a concentration in Humanitarianism and Ethics from Harvard University, and a Master of Precision Health with a focus on entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago.

Internationally recognized, Dr. Gaafar has contributed to advancing health system reform and priority setting across five continents—at regional, national, city, and local levels. He led the policy analysis of cancer and palliative care services and access to medicines in 109 countries—the largest study of its kind—culminating in the WHO Global Report on the Status of Cancer and Palliative Care. His strategic work has directly shaped national health plans, supported the passage of laws expanding access to cancer care, and influenced national and international frameworks for health research and delivery.

Dr. Gaafar also mentors and advises several startups in the digital health and health AI space across Africa and the Americas. He has delivered courses independently and through the University of Chicago’s Center for Global Health Innovation, focusing on approaches to health innovation that maximize value and minimize risk. His teaching spans systems thinking in health policy reform, impact measurement, and innovative health delivery models.