News/Events

The WDI Global Impact Speaker Series kicks off for the academic year by exploring the role that good supply chains play in ensuring health products reach their intended recipients in Africa and India, how technology is making a difference and why having a motivated and dedicated staff is critical. The Oct. 4 talk featuring David Sarley, senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates Foundation), also will highlight how graduating students can make a difference in global public health.

Sarley’s talk, “Primary Health Care Supply Chain Challenges and Opportunities,” will be held at 5 p.m. in Room R2220 at the Ross School of Business. It is free and open to the public.

The WDI Global Impact Speaker Series features thought leaders and practitioners who do innovative work in low- and middle-income countries. They share their experience, provoke thought, and stimulate discussion around the opportunities and challenges of international development.

Over the last five years at the Gates Foundation, Sarley has created and managed investments across multiple delivery teams tasked with strengthening supply chains, and recently joined the Innovation and Strategy team in Vaccine Delivery.

“David has a deep understanding of the needs, opportunities and challenges that many countries face ensuring that their citizens have access to a reliable supply of lifesaving health commodities,” said Michael Krautmann, senior research associate with WDI’s Healthcare Initiative, who has worked with Sarley on Gates Foundation-funded projects. “Through his work at the foundation, David is at the forefront of technological and organizational solutions to these challenges, and his talk will be insightful for students, faculty and all those who are interested in improving global access to medicines.”

Sarley served as a program officer on a large healthcare project, “Developing a Common Vision of Effective and Efficient Global Health Supply Chains”, implemented by WDI and funded by the Gates Foundation, which had a number of sub-components.

One element of the large project was creating executive communications materials to increase global donors’ investment in supply chain, and convey key supply chain challenges and opportunities in global health. Another part of the project resulted in a WDI report, “Designing Global Health Supply Chains for the Future,” that proposed a series of initiatives that governments, global development agencies, and those in the private sector should undertake immediately in order to build supply chain capacity to anticipate these increasing demands in the coming decades.

WDI’s engagement with the Gates Foundation also studied facilitating data-driven supply chain policy decisions by developing a model that incorporates performance tradeoffs and stakeholder priorities into formal cost effectiveness analysis. And, designing and initializing a supply chain resource center in West Africa that provides direct strategy support to governments to help transform their healthcare.

Sarley has nearly 35 years experience in investment and development in emerging markets. He has worked for 15 years in public health supply chain management, including 10 years with USAID grantee John Snow Inc. (JSI) and five at the Gates Foundation. Prior to JSI, he worked in economics consultancy for 16 years in trade, transport, finance and health economics.

He was a volunteer with the United Kingdom-based Voluntary Service Overseas and started his career for Ford Motor Co. in inventory management. He has a bachelor’s degree in Econometrics from the University of Hull in England, and a graduate degree from Southampton University. He has lived in four countries and worked in over 80 countries.