Dr. Neil Buddy Shah has been appointed chief executive of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, or CHAI, a global health organization working to reduce the burden of disease in low- and middle-income countries.
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Trained as a physician and development economist, he has spent just under two years as managing director of GiveWell, a highly influential organization that plans to direct $1 billion annually to programs it identifies as cost-effective by 2025.
Prior to joining GiveWell in July 2020, Shah was the CEO of IDinsight, a global development data analytics and advisory firm he co-founded that works with clients to improve the impact of their interventions.
Shah is a leader in effective altruism, or the use of evidence to guide better grant-making. CHAI works on many of the same global health priorities that GiveWell supports, such as malaria prevention. In his new role, which will be effective on June 14, 2022, Shah is in a unique position to bridge traditional sources of development assistance with emerging philanthropic efforts.
“CHAI has this really strong track record of working closely with governments across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to drive really transformational change in the public health system, to save a lot of lives, and it’s been doing that for 20 years,” Shah told Devex.
He sees an opportunity to marry the work of an established global health organization like CHAI “with these newer and increasingly large sources of philanthropic capital.”
“There are potentially really great complementarities between that kind of reach and experience and expertise and all the new capital that’s been hungry for saving lives cost-effectively,” Shah said.
The global health community and the growing number of donors focused on saving as many lives as possible per dollar spent, “have a lot to learn from each other and would benefit from being in closer dialogue,” he added.
“The common thread" between Shah’s work with IDInsight and GiveWell was the growing recognition that global health and international development spending could improve more lives if it were “based and informed on solid data and evidence about what works and what doesn’t,” he told Devex at Prescription for Progress event in February 2022.
Due in part to support from Open Philanthropy, GiveWell recently emerged as one of the world’s largest private funders in global health, and its resources are growing fast.
Shah said he thinks of GiveWell and IDInsight “as part of the same ecosystem” because of their shared belief that organizations can achieve more impact with every dollar if their thinking is “driven by reason.”
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Shah has said that one of the biggest constraints GiveWell faces is finding evidence-backed, cost-effective organizations that can absorb $50 million or more a year, and as he takes the helm at CHAI, he could be in a position to demonstrate how global health NGOs can evolve to meet this criteria.
“This news is bittersweet for me,” Elie Hassenfeld, co-founder and CEO at GiveWell, said in a blog post Thursday. “I’m sad to be losing the talent, advice and thought partnership Buddy brought to GiveWell, but I’m thrilled that he is taking up this position – the global health sector will be stronger for it.”
He called the appointment a “signal that effective giving is contributing to more corners of the global health landscape than ever before.”
“Buddy is a strong champion of impact maximization, and I am excited that he will apply this lens in his new role,” Hassenfeld said.
Shah will replace Joy Phumaphi and Ann Veneman, who became interim co-CEOs when former CHAI CEO Dr. Iain Barton stepped down in July 2021 and will remain on CHAI’s board of directors.
Phumaphi will work closely with Shah as part of the leadership transition, with priorities including deepening CHAI’s primary health care initiatives, localization efforts, and work on the intersection between climate and health, according to CHAI statement.
Alan Schwartz, chairman of the board and chair of the CEO search committee at CHAI, noted how Shah’s work as a medical doctor, economist, founder, CEO, and funder made him uniquely suited for this role.
“This unique combination of technical vision and leadership skills is a perfect fit for CHAI’s next phase of growth,” he said.
