Simon Bland

Simon Bland is the Board Chair of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Head of the Global Funds Department in the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. The Department is responsible for DFID’s policies, programs, financial management and shareholder relations with a broad range of innovative financing mechanisms whose primary area of focus is education or health. These include the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, GAVI Alliance, UNITAID and the Global Partnership for Education –- formerly the Fast Track Initiative. Simon is also DFID’s Representative to the United Nations and International Organizations in Geneva.

Prior to his September 2011 appointment as Board Chair, Simon had been a Member of the Global Fund’s governing Board since 2008. Concurrent with his Board leadership position for the Global Fund, Simon is a continuing member of the governing Boards of UNITAID, the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Global Partnership for Education.

Simon holds a Master's degree in Economics, and has degrees and post-graduate studies in marine sciences and management.

Simon’s professional career has spanned more than thirty years work in mostly developing countries in the Africa, Asia and Pacific regions. Prior to taking on his Geneva based role with DFID, Simon had held the position of Head of DFID Programmes in Russia and Ukraine and in Kenya and Somalia.