Nina Schwalbe

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Nina is a doer who turns bold ideas into tangible actions—making systems fairer, resources go further, and improving people’s lives and livelihoods. She is a firm believer that data, evidence, transparency, and community participation drive accountability and better outcomes. From working on local neighborhood actions to convening global health summits, she has learned that progress happens when people work together, listen to one another, and lead with empathy.

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Leadership that Delivers

• Founder and Principal of Spark Street Advisors, a global public health think tank and consultancy.

• Held senior leadership roles at private and public multinational organizations, transforming them to deliver better outcomes for people worldwide.

• Successfully managed global programs, large budgets, and diverse teams that achieve measurable, high-impact results.

 

Saving Lives Globally

• Drove policies at Gavi (the vaccine alliance) that enabled tens of millions of children worldwide to access new, life-saving vaccines.

• Led implementation of Nobel Prize–winning Advance Market Commitment, a cost-reducing innovation that helped prevent over 700,000 childhood deaths.

• Transformed UNICEF health programming across 150+ countries—strengthening systems, expanding adolescent health, and tackling non-communicable diseases.

 

Acting Locally

• Parents committee volunteer, class mom, YMCA swim team and West Side Little League mom, college class secretary, and condominium board chair.

• Grass roots canvasser for political campaigns ranging from city council to US president, active member of local Democratic club and lifelong Democrat.

• Advisor to the New York City Mayor’s office and schools throughout the city and around the world on keeping schools open during the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-chaired the WHO-UNESCO Research Network on Educational Institutions and COVID-19.

 

Driving Value and Impact

• Designed a program with the World Bank leveraging public and private finance to deliver a 700% return on investment for women’s and children’s health.

• Successfully negotiated radical price deduction of the cervical cancer vaccine so it could be widely available in low income countries.

• Appointed by the Biden-Harris Administration to design, launch, and implement a US$7 billion emergency initiative delivering one billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to low- and lower-middle-income countries.

 

Championing Equity and Rights

• Designed and directed programs and policies expanding access to HIV and TB treatment, harm reduction, LGBTQ+ services, palliative care, elder care, mental health services and the use of AI in low resource settings.

• Led policy efforts at a public-private partnership that accelerated the development of faster cures for TB, the leading infectious killer of adults worldwide.

• Secured full recognition of same-sex couples working for the United Nations in Geneva, advancing equality in international institutions.

 

Thought Leader and Public Voice

• Championed the development of a newly adopted global treaty to shape more equitable and effective global pandemic responses.

• Uses her public voice to connect data and evidence with policy and people, including through frequent contributions to The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Atlantic, Stat News, The Lancet, BMJ, and Foreign Policy and interviews with NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, Reuters, and the Economist, among others.

• Lifetime Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Lancet Commissioner on Gender and Health, and Senior Scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Policy and Politics— mentoring, teaching, and advocating for a more equitable world.