Although while in medical school Dr. Helene Gayle didn’t necessarily foresee herself being the head of a humanitarian nongovernmental organization, she always knew she wanted to have a career that would allow her to make a broad global impact. Today, as the president and CEO of CARE, she is doing just that. An international humanitarian organization that is fighting poverty across the globe, CARE’s staff of nearly 10,000 helps facilitate programs that in 2011 reached 122 million people in 84 countries. For her contributions, Gayle is being honored with Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement Health-Care Heroes Award.
“It’s incredibly gratifying to know you can make a huge difference in the lives of people who live in extreme poverty, who don’t have many of the things you and I take for granted,” Gayle said. “When I travel around the world and see what a $2 loan can do to change the whole life of a woman and her family — allow them to start businesses, earn incomes and send their children to school and to really create a real positive social change in their communities — to be part of an organization that does it, I think is awesome and a true privilege.”
Gayle has many years of experience helping create change. During her two decades at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she worked in a variety of capacities, mainly focusing on combating HIV/AIDS. She was appointed as the first director of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB prevention, and achieved the rank of rear admiral and assistant surgeon general in the U.S. Public Health Service. She also served as the AIDS coordinator and chief of the HIV/AIDS division for theU.S. Agency for International Development. In 2001, she joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she directed the HIV, TB and Reproductive Health Program before taking the helm at CARE in 2006.
“I have been able to work with amazing organizations that have allowed me the opportunity to be of service to others,” she said. “There are many goals I’ve set that I feel I’ve been able to meet —helping to develop the organizations I’ve worked with, helping to develop the people and the talent and helping to develop the capacity to have a positive impact, both in this country and around the world.”
In her current role, Gayle has worked to raise the visibility and understanding of what CARE is and does in the public eye, both internationally and in Atlanta, and focused on increasing partnerships across a variety of sectors and organizations, including other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector and governments. She’s reinforced the organization’s focus on long-term impact, increased policy and advocacy efforts, and strengthened connections between poverty and the environment.
“The world is obviously well-served by the work of Dr. Gayle, but so is Atlanta as she attracts gifted workers from many countries to work in Atlanta, provides Atlanta with a window to the needs of the world and makes globalization a positive force in our community. A lifetime of service is a gift to all of us,” said Bill Foege, professor emeritus at Emory University School of Public Health and senior fellow emeritus at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who has known Gayle since her days at the CDC.
In her leadership at CARE, Gayle has also led efforts to emphasize the organization’s commitment to empowering girls and women to be a force of change in poor communities.
“I have a real interest in the role that women can play as agents of social change,” she said. “Coincidentally, as I was coming on to CARE, it was really looking at how to increase the emphasis on empowering girls and women as part of its work.”
Bringing about change across the globe in the fight against poverty is no small feat. Gayle is constantly on the go, traveling from continent to continent to keep tabs on CARE’s myriad of programs.
“Her enthusiasm is contagious and her empathy is genuine. She appears to be as fearless in talking to Congress as she is gentle in talking to mothers,” Foege said. “Adaptability, hard work and example tend to be her methods of getting work done to improve health and well-being. The demands on her time are constant, the travel overwhelming, and yet she always rises to the next occasion.”
While the time commitment required by her position is great and it can often be difficult to keep a work-life balance, Gayle said the knowledge that she is helping make a huge impact in the lives of so many is incredibly gratifying. She also enjoys the diversity of her work — CARE spearheads projects that ranging from microfinance and water to agriculture and health. She said this diversity has broadened her understanding on the vital aspects involved with improving people’s lives beyond just health.
“I’ve learned a lot more about all the other things that are very critical to improving people’s lives that are very linked to health, but are beyond that,” she said. “I interact with a wide range of people from highest-level officials in governments around the world to the poorest of the poor in developing countries. To be able to interact with such a wide range of people, but still be able to see the common humanity in all of us — for me it’s a very rewarding thing.”......BY :GIANNINA SMITH BEDFORD
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