Kate Thomson

Vice Chair

Kate has been active in global health for almost 40 years. After having worked initially within community and civil society organizations.

For the past two and a half decades, Kate has held senior management positions within multilateral institutions. Over this period, she developed extensive and long-standing links with global, regional and national-level community and civil society, as well as with multilateral, bilateral and foundation partners. She has been able to consistently and effectively leverage these relationships within her work in ways that have led to significant change. Throughout her career, Kate has focused on the often-intersecting areas of HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, human rights and gender, and has consistently highlighted the importance of community engagement and advocacy as key elements for successful health responses.

Between 2013 and 2023, Kate was the Head of Community, Rights and Gender at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, establishing and leading a department that provided strategic, technical and policy leadership on human rights, gender, health equity, and community systems, responses and engagement. Previously, Kate spent eight years with UNAIDS where she Kate led the Community Mobilization Division, overseeing civil society participation in strategy and policy development, as well as in political events such as High-Level Meetings in the UN General Assembly. Her work in global health began in the mid-1980s when she helped to establish Positively Women, a UK based peer-led support organization for women living with HIV, now known as Positively UK. Kate was also a founding member and early coordinator of the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW)