Biographical Info of Frank Webb

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Frank Webb has 30 years’ experience of senior management and leadership in multilateral organizations and international NGOs that combine multiple disciplines in comprehensive responses to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. He has a doctoral degree in physiology from the University of Oxford and was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge.

In 1978, he was invited by the World Health Organization to initiate and manage collaboration with China in research in women’s health. Over ten years, this successful program grew to become the largest and most comprehensive program of capacity development for research ever provided to a single country. From 1990 Frank oversaw similar activities throughout the Asia and Pacific region, including substantial projects in North Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar and Viet Nam. From 1993, he was one of a small team that completely restructured WHO’s programs in sexual and reproductive health and defined the strategic plan for global research in those fields for the next 5-10 years.

In Washington, DC from 1998 he was director of a U.S. Agency for International Development global project in women’s health, before joining the senior management of FHI (now FHI360), a large international non-profit located in RTP. Since 2006 he has been an independent consultant, including assignments for the Chinese Government and a 14-month period as CEO guiding the transition of a small volunteer-based organization to a vibrant professional NGO that improves hospital equipment management in Africa, Asia and Central America.

At the Duke Center of International Development since 2006, Frank has taught courses on leadership under the SAFEA executive education program. He currently teaches a course on capacity development and aid effectiveness and another on project management for international development in the Master’s program in International Development Policy. Frank has served as Chair of the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission and on the Board of CAM, the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh.

Frank Webb