Professor Gerry Stimson is a leading advocate for tobacco harm reduction and an Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London. A public health social scientist, with over 50 years’ experience of research and advocacy, he was one of the founders of drugs harm reduction in the 1990s, helping to develop and evaluate harm reduction in the UK as a response to HIV/AIDS. Gerry has advised the UK Government, WHO, UNAIDS, UNODC, the World Bank and numerous governments around the world on issues relating to drugs, HIV infection and AIDS, and alcohol. He has also published over 220 scientific publications and several books. 

Currently, Gerry is Director of Research and Policy at Knowledge•Action•Change, and is involved in the FSFW-funded Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction and Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship programmes. He is also a co-founder of the Global Forum on Nicotine, which has been delivered by KAC Communications since 2014. 

Professor Gerry Stimson is a leading advocate for tobacco harm reduction and an Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London. A public health social scientist, with over 50 years’ experience of research and advocacy, he was one of the founders of drugs harm reduction in the 1990s, helping to develop and evaluate harm reduction in the UK as a response to HIV/AIDS. Gerry has advised the UK Government, WHO, UNAIDS, UNODC, the World Bank and numerous governments around the world on issues relating to drugs, HIV infection and AIDS, and alcohol. He has also published over 220 scientific publications and several books. 

Currently, Gerry is Director of Research and Policy at Knowledge•Action•Change, and is involved in the FSFW-funded Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction and Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship programmes. He is also a co-founder of the Global Forum on Nicotine, which has been delivered by KAC Communications since 2014. 

Professor Michel Kazatchkine is UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Kazatchkine has spent the past 25 years fighting AIDS and working to improve global health as a leading physician, researcher, advocate, policymaker, diplomat and administrator.

He attended medical school at Necker-Enfants-Malades in Paris, studied immunology at the Pasteur Institute and completed postdoctoral fellowships at St Mary’s hospital in London and Harvard Medical School.

His involvement with HIV began in 1983, when as a young clinical immunologist he treated a French couple who had returned from Africa with unexplained fever and severe immune deficiency. By 1985, he had started a clinic in Paris specialising in AIDS, which now treats over 1,600 people.

From 1998 to 2005, Professor Kazatchkine directed the French National Research Agency (ANRS), the world’s second largest AIDS research programme. He has produced more than 600 research papers focusing on auto-immunity, drug therapy, immuno-intervention and HIV pathogenesis, in addition to serving on numerous editorial boards.

From 2005 to 2007, Professor Kazatchkine was France’s global ambassador for HIV/AIDS and transmissible diseases. As Ambassador he championed France’s contributions to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the establishment of Unitaid.

In 2007 he was elected as Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. In his five years at the helm of the Fund, more than $20 billion in additional donor commitments and pledges were mobilised and he oversaw a major expansion of the Global Fund’s operations and grant portfolio, establishing the Fund as the major international financer of health programs. He strongly emphasised the Fund’s role as a model partnership for development at the national and global levels and promoted innovative approaches to health financing, including Debt2Health and the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria. His leadership of the Global Fund consolidated his reputation as one of the world’s leading advocates for health and human rights.

In 2012, Professor Kazatchkine was appointed as the UN Secretary General‘s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the part of the world where the AIDS epidemic is expanding at the fastest rate.

Professor Michel Kazatchkine is UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Kazatchkine has spent the past 25 years fighting AIDS and working to improve global health as a leading physician, researcher, advocate, policymaker, diplomat and administrator.

He attended medical school at Necker-Enfants-Malades in Paris, studied immunology at the Pasteur Institute and completed postdoctoral fellowships at St Mary’s hospital in London and Harvard Medical School.

His involvement with HIV began in 1983, when as a young clinical immunologist he treated a French couple who had returned from Africa with unexplained fever and severe immune deficiency. By 1985, he had started a clinic in Paris specialising in AIDS, which now treats over 1,600 people.

From 1998 to 2005, Professor Kazatchkine directed the French National Research Agency (ANRS), the world’s second largest AIDS research programme. He has produced more than 600 research papers focusing on auto-immunity, drug therapy, immuno-intervention and HIV pathogenesis, in addition to serving on numerous editorial boards.

From 2005 to 2007, Professor Kazatchkine was France’s global ambassador for HIV/AIDS and transmissible diseases. As Ambassador he championed France’s contributions to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the establishment of Unitaid.

In 2007 he was elected as Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. In his five years at the helm of the Fund, more than $20 billion in additional donor commitments and pledges were mobilised and he oversaw a major expansion of the Global Fund’s operations and grant portfolio, establishing the Fund as the major international financer of health programs. He strongly emphasised the Fund’s role as a model partnership for development at the national and global levels and promoted innovative approaches to health financing, including Debt2Health and the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria. His leadership of the Global Fund consolidated his reputation as one of the world’s leading advocates for health and human rights.

In 2012, Professor Kazatchkine was appointed as the UN Secretary General‘s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the part of the world where the AIDS epidemic is expanding at the fastest rate.

David MacKintosh has spent two decades working in drug and alcohol policy. This has included experience at national level (Cabinet Office), regional (Greater London Authority) and local civic levels (City of London). From 2001 – 2020 he led the work of the London Drug and Alcohol Policy Forum including its involvement in the 2006-07 AGIS programme undertaking a threat assessment in relation to methamphetamine and was a supporter of the Club Health – Healthy and Safer Nightlife of Youth Project 2008-2013. His work around improving safety in the night time economy, relaunched in early 2020, is acknowledged as the UK best practice guidance and has informed work internationally.

The executive director of AFEW-Kyrgyzstan

Dr Manuel Carballo in an Executive Director of the International Centre for Migration, Health and Development (ICMHD) in Switzerland.

Born in Gibraltar, Dr Carballo studied in the UK. In a distinguished career he has worked with the United Nations and World Health Organization in a number of countries. His areas of expertise extend to HIV/AIDS, post-conflict and disaster relief and reconstruction and refugee crisis response and management. In 1995 he set up the International Centre for Migration and Health, a Swiss based research and training organisation, and has continued his work through this. He is also adjunct Professor of Clinical Public Health at the Columbia School of Public Health, in the US.