Dara Erck is a global health strategy specialist who believes in the strength of partnerships and innovative thinking for maximum impact. She has over 20 years of experience throughout the African continent.
Ms. Erck was previously a Senior Advisor to Panorama, focusing on vaccines and implementation strategies. She is also a Senior Advisor to Made By Dyslexia (MBD), a nonprofit launched by Richard Branson to bring awareness and support to the one out of ten children affected by dyslexia. Prior to MBD, she served as Vice President, External Affairs at Aeras, a product development partnership focused on developing a tuberculosis vaccine. While at Aeras, she was responsible for advocacy, communications, and resource mobilization. During her tenure, she secured five new funders from both private and public sources.
Before joining Aeras, Ms. Erck was a consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Global Health R&D Advocacy. She worked with the foundation to advocate for increased spending for global health R&D as well as to promote innovative financing for product development. She has served as an independent consultant to a variety of global health non-profit organizations with projects focused on program strategy and financial systems and tools. She became a consultant after serving as the Director of Finance and Planning for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). She also has industry experience as a former management consultant with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and as a Program Manager in Clinical Research at Genzyme.
In addition to working in global health, she is passionate about government reform and democratization. She has been an election supervisor with the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) since 1997 in Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Ukraine, and Georgia.
Ms. Erck holds a Masters of international finance and business from Columbia University in New York and a Bachelor of Arts in international economics and politics from The George Washington University in Washington, DC.
