Global Webinar Series: Sustainable Health Financing

Vice President, Health Systems Strengthening, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

Vandana Shah is Vice President, Health Systems Strengthening at the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), where she provides strategic leadership across a global portfolio advancing stronger, more equitable health systems. She oversees major initiatives spanning noncommunicable diseases, Data for Health, Drowning Prevention, Health Financing, Immunization and Prevent Epidemics.

Vandana manages multidisciplinary teams working in more than 20 countries, partnering with governments and civil society to catalyze political will, mobilize domestic resources and strengthen the effectiveness and accountability of health spending. With deep expertise in budget advocacy and health tax policy, she has driven strategies that translate evidence into policy change and increased public investment in health. Her work has enabled locally led advocacy efforts that deliver sustainable financing and improved health outcomes across diverse settings.

Previously, Vandana served as Regional Director for South Asia at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and GHAI, where she led multi-country policy and advocacy efforts across India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the broader region. Her portfolio included tobacco control, food policy, cardiovascular health, drowning prevention and gender equity. She continues to guide tobacco control and food policy initiatives in India.

Earlier in her career, Vandana was Executive Director of the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund, where she led the design and implementation of statewide prevention programs with annual budgets exceeding $30 million. She is co-founder of KIRAN, a North Carolina–based organization supporting South Asian survivors of domestic violence, and has held board leadership roles across several healthcare and nonprofit organizations, including serving as Vice Chair of the Foundation for Health Leadership and Innovation.

Vandana holds law degrees from Duke University and University of Calcutta.

President and CEO, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

Yolonda C. Richardson is President and CEO of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a position she has held since July 1, 2023. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is the leading advocacy organization working to prevent and reduce tobacco use and its deadly consequences in the United States and around the world.

From 2009 to 2023, Ms. Richardson served as Executive Vice President for Global Programs at Tobacco-Free Kids. In that role, she oversaw efforts to enact and implement effective tobacco control policies in over 60 countries, including Tobacco-Free Kids’ partnership in the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use. Under Ms. Richardson’s leadership, the global program expanded in 2014 to focus on other critical public health challenges with the launch of the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI). Building on the successes and lessons learned in the global fight against tobacco, GHAI now works in dozens of countries around the world and supports civil society organizations to advance policies on a wide range of public health issues, including food and nutrition policy, health systems strengthening and budget advocacy, and injury prevention.

Prior to joining Tobacco-Free Kids, Ms. Richardson served as the President and Founder of Richardson Consulting, a managing consulting firm specialized in providing senior level strategic support and expertise to nonprofit organizations, foundations, corporate philanthropies, and global development agencies. She has consulted with and for a range of private companies, foundations and nonprofit organizations, including Shell Corporation, Inc., ExxonMobil Corporation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, ELMA Philanthropies, Leon H. Sullivan Foundation, LTL Strategies, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur and Ford Foundations.

Formerly, Ms. Richardson served as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA). Founded in 1975, CEDPA seeks to advance women's rights and expand their access to health and other services through partnerships with more than 150 organizations in 40 countries. As President and CEO, she provided overall leadership and strategic direction for the organization. In addition, she led the organization’s fundraising and new business development efforts, successfully increased the number and scope of private sector partnerships, and raised the visibility of the organization and its issues in the United States and abroad.

She has also served as Special Counsel for the African Development Foundation, a government-funded granting agency that provides financial support to African non-governmental organizations and small businesses to enhance the participation of the poor in the development of their countries. As Senior Vice President of Africare, she oversaw program design, implementation and evaluation of more than 150 rural development projects throughout Africa focused on community health, agriculture, and democracy and governance. She also served as in-house link with external legal counsel on issues of trademark, copyright, employment, and contracting issues.

Prior to joining Africare, Ms. Richardson spent ten years at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a global foundation, where she managed an international grant program focused on improving women’s health and programs and promoting U.S. civil rights, democracy, and governance. Her work at the foundation included support to women’s groups and leaders throughout Africa as well as to an operations research network in West Africa to address the high rates of maternal mortality. Additional support helped to build the women’s movement in South Africa and to address educational access for girls.

Ms. Richardson is a recognized global public health expert as well as on gender and international development, global health, U.S. philanthropy and Corporate Social Responsibility. She speaks and lectures regularly on international development issues and has appeared as an expert source in top media outlets, including the Associated Press, Reuters, C-SPAN, and National Public Radio. She has worked in and traveled to more than 60 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Central and South America. She has served on the boards of several national and international organizations. Having practiced as a corporate attorney at the Wall Street law firm, Cahill Gordon & Reindel, Ms. Richardson continues to be a member of the New York Bar Association. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ms. Richardson holds a Masters Degree in Public Health from Columbia University and a Juris Doctorate from Yale University School of Law. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, from Dillard University in New Orleans.

Executive Director, Vision for Accelerated Sustainable Development Ghana (VAST Ghana)

Labram M. Musah is the Executive Director of Vision for Accelerated Sustainable Development Ghana (VAST Ghana), an organization advocating for evidence-based tobacco and alcohol control and food policies, road safety measures, climate actions and NCDs policies. He is the National Coordinator of NCD Alliance Ghana, advocating for NCDs prevention and meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs in policy making processes. He led the advocacy campaign that led to the reform of the 2023 excise tax structure for tobacco from ad valorem to a hybrid system, and tax increases on alcohol and sugar sweetened beverages. He is advancing policies to expose and safeguard policies from commercial and vested interest of the unhealthy commodity industries.

Labram has authored/co-authored several publications among which include; the Ghana Tobacco Industry Interference Index in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2025, Investment case on tobacco and Air Pollution.

He is a Board member of Movendi International, Regional Committee member of the Global Alliance for Tobacco Control and a member of Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT). Recognized as a 2025 UHC Champion and 2025 WHO World No Tobacco Day Award recipient. 

He advances health equity and people-centered policy throughout Africa.

Program Manager, Mathiwos Wondu Foundation, Ethiopia 

Tizita Wondwossen is a public health expert with 14 years of relevant professional experience, including 10 years of specialized experience in public health policy advocacy and enforcement related to tobacco control and other noncommunicable diseases (NCD) risk factors. She has a Master's degree in Public Health.

Viet Nam Country Director, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids 

Huyen Doan is a public health policy and advocacy leader with over 20 years of experience in Viet Nam. She serves as Viet Nam Country Director for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the Global Health Advocacy Incubator, leading initiatives in tobacco control, child drowning prevention and other public health programs. Before joining the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Huyen served as a Program Manager and supported the Monitoring and Evaluation work in the Viet Nam Tobacco Control Fund under the Ministry of Health. Her work focuses on translating evidence into effective policies, mobilizing sustainable government financing, strengthening partner capacity, and supporting the implementation of high-impact public health programs. She is also a PhD Student at the Hanoi University of Public Health.

Senior Policy Advocacy Consultant, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (Philippines) 

Maxine Tanya M. Hamada has influenced the public budget from both sides — negotiating for a seat at the table as a civil society leader, then holding the pen inside government.

In 2011, as executive director of INCITEGov, she helped craft the DBM-CSO Principles of Constructive Engagement (National Budget Memorandum 109), the first formal terms for citizen participation in the Philippine budget process. She then entered government and made them operational, embedding Budget Partnership Agreements and public feedback on CSO consultations into the formal budget cycle. Those mechanisms still stand, and the approach they modeled is adopted in the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency's Principles of Public Participation in Fiscal Policies.

As Assistant Secretary at the Department of Budget and Management from 2014 to 2016, she issued the government's National Evaluation Policy Framework with NEDA, oversaw the Bottom-up Budgeting program, and led the shift to performance-based transfers to local governments — growing the Local Government Support Fund from PhP 50 million to PhP 18.4 billion in two years. She has advised on public financial management in Nepal, Myanmar, and the Bangsamoro region, and served a decade on the international steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy.

She heads H-Camp Consultancy and teaches public fiscal management, monitoring and evaluation, and policy advocacy at the Ateneo School of Government, the Development Academy of the Philippines, and the Konrad Adenauer Asian Young Leaders Programme. She is Senior Policy and Advocacy Consultant for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in the Philippines.

Co-founder and Executive Director, the SUR Institute (Mexico)

Jorge A. Macías, M.Ph is Co-founder and Executive Director of the SUR Institute. He holds a Master’s in Environmental Economics and Economic Development (University of Oslo) and a specialization in Finance (University of British Columbia). He has served as Deputy Director-General for Sustainable Urban Development at Mexico’s Ministry of Environment (SEMARNAT), Regional Advisor for UNEP on Green Economy, and Director of Urban Development at World Resources Institute. Consultant for the World Bank, ECLAC, and other multilateral organizations. With over 17 years of experience, his work focuses on public health, air quality, and the design of environmental and health-related tax instruments, integrating fiscal policy, budgeting, and public investment to support tobacco control and healthier, more sustainable cities.