It is a great honour and pleasure for me to have been appointed as the new CEO of GALVmed. I join the organisation at a moment where GALVmed can look back proudly onto 10 years of successful operations and has established a solid foundation of experienced staff, strong partners and good funding. Let us stop for a moment to acknowledge this success and express gratitude to the outgoing CEO Peter Jeffries for his solid commitment to the cause of GALVmed and for managing the organisation through challenging times and changes. The Board, the staff and our very supportive funders, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Government have been great facilitators.
What attracted me to GALVmed is not only its solid foundation, but its potential and unique position within the world of international agricultural development. Connecting the animal health industry with other key players in the field is a difficult challenge and key to the success of our mission. GALVmed is well positioned to understand what all sides have to offer and can build the bridges that facilitate access to relevant quality veterinary medicine for small holder livestock farmers.
This exciting perspective will guide our work on the new GALVmed strategy 2030 which was initiated by the Board in September 2018!
I truly believe that GALVmed can become a driver of economic growth in the animal health sector in our target areas but we will have to think out of the box. Perhaps the solution lies in social business models that have produced paradigm shifts in other commercial sectors. Perhaps we need a comprehensive sourcing strategy to complete our R&D activities to fill confirmed gaps with relevant and affordable animal health products. Or perhaps success comes through better leveraging the strengths of other stakeholders to overcome business barriers and build conducive local business environments that attract local, regional and multinational players. Very likely, the solution lies in a combination of these and other, potentially unconventional ideas.
I am looking forward to the coming months during which our Veterinary Innovations Transforming Animal Health and Livelihoods (VITAL) programme activities will move into full motion while in parallel we start preparing for the future. My commitment is to continuously seek for ways that make our staff and partners successful, all while bringing a fresh perspective and constructive challenge into the discussion about GALVmed’s direction. I invite everyone in the organisation to contribute to the reflection in an innovative, ambitious and agile manner so that we can take our service to smallholder livestock farmers to the next level and beyond.