Board
Frank de Wolf (Chairman) is a medical microbiologist, who has been involved in HIV/AIDS-related research since 1984. Since 2001, he has served as Director of the Dutch HIV Monitoring Foundation, which is responsible for the collection and analysis of data obtained from all HIV-positive individuals seen at one of the 25 national HIV treatment centres in the Netherlands.
James Nolan (Treasurer) is the Executive Vice President and Global Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Royal Philips Electronics based in Amsterdam. He qualified as a barrister in the United Kingdom and worked in the banking industry in London and Paris prior to joining Philips. He has served on the boards of various companies, as well as being a member of their audit committees. He has been on the board of AFEW since 2004.
Catherine Hodgkin (Board Member) has worked for ten years as co-ordinator of an international network of non-governmental organisations, and consumer and public interest groups working to promote the rational use of drugs (Health Action International). She is currently Director of the Department of Development, Policy and Practice at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in the Netherlands—a multidisciplinary team of 60 professional staff carrying out research, training and advisory work in the area of international development and health.
Vladimir Pozner (Board Member) is the President of the Academy of Russian Television and a well-known anchorman and talk show host on Russian television. In 2005, he was the host of the television series ‘Time to Live!’, which focused on HIV-related issues in Russian regions, a programme within the framework of the GLOBUS project (supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria). He has won multiple Soviet, Russian, and American awards, including two Emmy Awards, its Russian equivalent—the Taffy Award, and several international awards.
Leah Utyasheva (Board Member) is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Toronto, Canada, which she joined in April 2006. In this capacity she specialises in human rights of people living with HIV, people who use drugs and prisoners in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Leah has worked in the area of human rights and law in the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia for more than 7 years. She previously worked at the American Bar Association's Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI) in Moscow and Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) in Budapest. Born in Ufa, Russia, Leah has a law degree from the Bashkir State University. She holds an LL.M. in Comparative Constitutional Law from the Central European University, Budapest, and a Ph.D. in Human Rights Law from the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom.
Arsen Kubataev (Board Member) is Head of Government Affairs at Medtronic in Russia. He has extensive experience in the areas of international healthcare development, not-for-profit management, health services administration, medical equipment and pharmaceutical sectors and international public health. His areas of expertise are strategic management, business development, policy research, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy and communications. Dr. Kubataev holds his MBA from Duke University (Health Sector Management), an MS from New York University (Public Administration), and an MD from the Saint-Petersburg Medical Academy (Epidemiology/Infectious Disease). He practiced medicine for two and a half years after finishing medical school in 1989.
Guido van den Berk (Board Member) is an internist-infectious disease specialist who has been working in the OLVG Hospital in the centre of Amsterdam since 2006. This hospital is the biggest HIV clinic in the Netherlands with over 2,000 patients. Guido’s Outpatient Department is responsible for the care of 500 HIV patients. Guido has also worked as a doctor for Medecins Sans frontieres in Ukraine and India. He has also lived and worked in Curacao, Botswana and South Africa. He has been on the board of AFEW since 2010.
Management Team
Joost van der Meer (Executive Director) was appointed Executive Director of AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW) in July 2005, officially assuming that position in October of that year. Joost was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is a medical graduate of the University of Amsterdam, has a PhD in Medicine from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and has taken a variety of speciality courses in public health research and analysis, as well as project management and training courses at educational institutions ranging from Leiden, Rotterdam and Johns Hopkins universities. He has held a variety of positions in various organisations and institutions, ranging from Senior House Officer at both St. Lucas and Prinsengracht hospitals in Amsterdam; General Co-ordinator, Project Co-ordinator and Programme Officer at Wemos, a Dutch international health information and policy advocacy organisation; Research Co-ordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Uzbekistan; and Head of Mission/Medical Co-ordinator of MSF in Ukraine. From 2002 until joining AFEW, he worked as Health Advisor for MSF-H, supporting programmes in ten countries—Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. He brings to AFEW a range of research and practical / clinical skills, as well as a broad understanding of international health issues, particularly those related to the most pressing issues in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Anke van Dam (Director of Programmes), born in 1958 in the Netherlands, graduated from Erasmus University in Rotterdam as a medical doctor in 1983, received a specialist degree as a general practitioner from Rijksuniversiteit in Leiden in 1985, and graduated as a community health specialist from the Netherlands School of Public and Occupational Health in Utrecht in 1998. She began her career as a general practitioner near Rotterdam, providing care to many immigrants from Turkey and Morocco. She then moved from the clinical setting and began working on issues related to sexual health and HIV as a trainer, an advisor and a consultant, including proposal writing and programme evaluation. Before joining AFEW, she held a senior management position at Rutgers Nisso Groep, the Dutch Expert Centre on Sexuality. In addition to this breadth of knowledge, Anke’s work experience spans the globe from Southeast Asia and Africa to Eastern Europe and Central Asia. She joined AFEW as Director of Programmes in January 2008.
Elena Agapova (Director of Finance and Administration) joined AFEW in 2004. She has more than 10 years of experience working in various senior-level finance positions. Before joining AFEW, she worked as a financial consultant to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in New York. Elena has also worked as a Director of Finance at several USAID-funded projects in Moscow, including the Institute for Election Systems Development (IESD), and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES). In addition, she led the Finance Department at the real estate firm, Perestroika. Elena is a certified management accountant, and a member of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Elena obtained her Master of Science degree in Management from New York University, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Services, specializing in finance and accounting. She was an Edmund F. Muskie fellow, funded by the US State Department. Elena also holds a Master's degree in Economics from Lomonosov Moscow State University.