Catharina Boehme

As Assistant Director-General of External Relations and Governance, Dr Boehme leads WHO’s strategic engagement in the areas of governance, resource mobilization and partner relations. Her portfolio includes providing secretariat support for the World Health Assembly and the WHO Executive Board, along with intergovernmental processes mandated by WHO governing bodies, including those that relate to governance reform and sustainable financing. She oversees WHO’s coordinated resource mobilization and donor relations and Organization-wide efforts to improve the predictability, flexibility and sustainability of WHO financing. Dr Boehme is also responsible for engaging WHO in multilateral and multisectoral partnerships for advancing global health, including with civil society, the private sector and other non-state actors.

From 2021-2023, Dr Boehme served as the Director-General’s Chef de Cabinet. In this role, she drove the leadership’s strategic vision, ensuring alignment across the Organization and with Member States and partners.

Prior to assuming this role, Dr Boehme was the Chief Executive Officer of FIND, the international alliance for diagnostics, for 8 years. Under her leadership, the Organization improved access to diagnosis for more than 100 million people in low- and middle-income countries and tackled major emerging challenges such as antimicrobial resistance, infectious disease outbreaks and noncommunicable diseases. She was co-convener of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator to drive equitable access to COVID-19 testing.

Early in her career, Dr Boehme worked in Ghana and the United Republic of Tanzania, focusing on clinical research to eliminate tuberculosis. She has served on several WHO and global advisory bodies, participated in two Lancet Commissions and published in several hundred peer-reviewed publications.

Dr Boehme trained as a medical doctor and has diplomas in public health and management.