Secretariat

Devy supports the head of the GFF Secretariat, leading high-level administrative and operational coordination, facilitating cross-team collaboration, and supporting strategic initiatives.

She previously completed a one-year developmental assignment in the World Bank’s Eastern and Southern Africa vice president’s office, supporting the regional vice president and the director of strategy and operations. From 2019 to 2024, she contributed to the external relations and the country operations workstreams at the GFF. Prior to joining the GFF, she was part of the front office of the senior vice president, UN relations and partnerships, and held roles in the country director’s office and administration unit at the World Bank’s Indonesia Country Office.

Smita is a pediatrician and preventive medicine specialist with 20+ years of experience in global health and international development with over a decade of country-based work. Prior to joining the GFF, she worked with USAID for 13 years, most recently as the USAID country director in Lesotho.

Prior to that, she held senior technical advisory positions at USAID headquarters in newborn health, in Ethiopia as the child health lead and South Africa focused on pediatric and adolescent HIV prevention, care and treatment. Prior to USAID, she spent three years as a working pediatrician in Lesotho with Baylor College of Medicine and worked at HQ level for Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and UNICEF.

Smita has experience in senior management as well as in several elements of RMNCAH, health system resilience, pharmaceutical systems, community health and multisectoral programming.

Akiko Sakaedani Petrovic is a seasoned senior manager and global health professional with over 20 years of international experience spanning Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. She specializes in driving innovative programs in global health, development, and humanitarian response, with a focus on multisectoral collaboration, behavior change, and evidence-based strategies.

From 2021 to 2026, Akiko served as Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) Manager at UNICEF Kenya, where her team earned a UNICEF staff award for their innovative, cross-sectoral efforts in delivering life-saving vaccines in collaboration with health and supply teams. During her tenure, she co-led UNICEF Kenya’s Climate Change and Early Childhood Development (ECD) taskforces, championing integrated approaches to address complex challenges.

Between 2013 and 2018, Akiko led groundbreaking initiatives in Rwanda, where she coordinated multiple government ministries to develop the National Social and Behaviour Change Communication Strategy for Integrated ECD, Nutrition, and WASH (2018–2024). This strategy provided a framework to reduce stunting and improve child development outcomes through evidence-based messaging and coordinated stakeholder engagement. She also partnered with the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency to launch Itetero, the country's first children's media program, fostering positive interaction between young children and their parents.

Akiko holds two master’s degrees in public health and intercultural relations, and brings extensive expertise in building government capacity, driving community engagement, and responding to disease outbreaks. She is deeply committed to leveraging multisectoral collaboration to drive sustainable results and narrow the equity gap.

Carolyn Reynolds is a strategic global health and development leader and has held senior roles in a diverse array of international organizations and global initiatives. In 2025, Carolyn led development of Transform 2030, the GFF’s new strategy for 2026–2030. From 2020–2024, Carolyn co-founded and led the Pandemic Action Network (PAN), a global advocacy partnership of more than 400 organizations to drive collective action on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, and she played an instrumental role in the COVID-19 response and in creation of the Pandemic Fund. Previously, Carolyn served as vice president at PATH, a leading global health nonprofit, where she directed global policy, advocacy, partnerships, and resource mobilization on maternal and child health and nutrition, global health security, health research and development, and health system strengthening. As manager for External and Corporate Relations for Human Development at the World Bank Group, Carolyn was a member of the HDN and ECR VPU leadership teams and led strategic communications, global partnerships, and campaigns to advance WBG corporate priorities including universal health coverage, response to the West Africa Ebola outbreak, pandemic preparedness, learning for all and girls’ education, social safety nets, and the establishment of the GFF.

In earlier roles, Carolyn was head of global civil society engagement for the WBG, a co-founder and managing director of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC), legislative director for InterAction, and acting director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa. Carolyn is currently a non-resident fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an expert advisor to the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Health Security, and an expert advisor to the G20 High-Level Panel on Pandemic Financing. She previously was a distinguished fellow with The George Institute for Global Health. She has published numerous articles and commentary and has been cited in prominent media outlets such as The Atlantic, Devex, Forbes, NPR, Reuters, and The Washington Post.

She holds a master of international affairs from Columbia University and a bachelor of arts in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two daughters.

Diwa Samad is a development economist and healthcare professional with extensive experience in the global health arena. Previously, she worked with GFF as a health economist, leading GFF's work on resource mapping and expenditure tracking (RMET). In that role, she collaborated with various teams to make RMET technical assistance more responsive, focusing on improving the use of data and evidence in country planning, budgeting processes, and strengthening country PFM systems.

Prior to joining the World Bank, Diwa worked as a senior health system specialist at the Global Fund, where she contributed to the Global Fund’s RSSH agenda. In this role, she provided specialized technical support in community health financing approaches, HRH, social contracting with CSOs, and the integration of disease programs within countries' health system structures, particularly in preparation for the Global Fund’s Cycle 7.

Diwa has also served as the deputy health minister and senior health sector reform advisor to the president of Afghanistan. In these roles, she focused on designing national health programs and worked closely with various partners to align resources for program implementation. She also led multisectoral efforts to address social determinants of health.

Diwa holds a master’s degree in economics with specialized training in health economics and health system governance. She is passionate about research and has published in various journals, including The Lancet, BMC Health Services Research, and BMC Palliative Care. She has delivered executive trainings, most recently as a visiting lecturer at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, focusing on social outcome financing approaches.