Biography

Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao is Gavi’s Managing Director of Resource Mobilisation, Private Sector Partnerships & Innovative Finance. Marie-Ange is a senior executive with a relentless drive for results and a 20-year track record in strategic leadership, policy development, innovative finance and resource mobilisation in emerging markets and globally.

Since joining Gavi in 2011, Marie-Ange’s leadership was instrumental in raising the largest amount of resources ever for Gavi – close to US$ 18 billion by 2015. She is the lead negotiator with G7 and G20 leaders, corporations and high net-worth individuals in the expansion of Gavi’s investor base. In her capacity, she also drives the strategic resource mobilisation of the institution, aligning Gavi’s priorities with those of public and private investors and leveraging diverse financial instruments – such as the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), Advanced Market Commitment (AMC), and the Gavi Matching Fund – to attract private sector investment and expertise.

More recently, Marie-Ange has been driving new private sector investments to scale innovation for impact: she has spearheaded Innovation for Uptake, Scale and Equity in Immunisation (INFUSE), an investment marketplace platform launched at Davos in 2016, to provide low-income countries with access to vetted and tested innovations that can be adapted and scaled up for efficient healthcare delivery.

Prior to joining Gavi, Marie-Ange held several senior management positions ranging from the development of new ventures to management of flagship initiatives in international investment banks and multinational development agencies.