Anita Zaidi

Dr. Anita Zaidi is President, Gender Equality and Director, Vaccine Development & Surveillance, and Director, Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases programs, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She oversees the foundation’s efforts to achieve gender equality by integrating gender across the foundation’s global work and investing in women’s economic empowerment, women’s leadership, women’s health, and removing the barriers for women and girls to thrive. The mission of the Gender Equality Division is a world in which women and girls have equal opportunity.

Anita also serves as the foundation’s director of the Vaccine Development & Surveillance, and Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases programs. Since joining the foundation in 2014, she has led a team focused on vaccine development for people in the poorest parts of the world, surveillance to identify and address causes of death in children in the most under-served areas, and significantly reducing the adverse consequences of diarrheal and enteric infections on children’s health in low and middle-income countries. Through this role, Anita champions innovative work on behalf of low-income women and children, including the creation of the Women Leaders in Global Health program – now called WomenLift Health – to promote diversity in global health leadership. She also works closely with the foundation’s Maternal Newborn Child Health Discovery & Tools program.