Director-General

Institutional context

Chan is the second woman to serve as Director-General of the World Health Organization, after Gro Harlem Brundtland (1998–2003). The institutional context is detailed in the Brundtland WHO dossier.

Career path

Chan earned a medical degree from the University of Western Ontario and a master's in public health from the National University of Singapore. She joined the Hong Kong Department of Health in 1978, becoming Director of Health for Hong Kong from 1994 to 2003. In that role she led the territory's response to the H5N1 avian-influenza outbreak in 1997 and to SARS in 2003. She joined WHO in 2003, becoming Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases.

Appointment

The World Health Assembly elected her on 9 November 2006 in a special election following the death of Director-General Lee Jong-wook. She served two consecutive five-year terms, leaving office on 30 June 2017. She was succeeded by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia.

Tenure

Ten years and seven months. Tenure included the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, the 2014–2016 West African Ebola epidemic (during which WHO was widely criticised for the slowness of its response), the 2015–2016 Zika epidemic, and the development of the International Health Regulations.

Cluster context

Chan's 2006 appointment continues the WHO pattern that began with Brundtland in 1998. Together they make WHO the most prominent international-organisation institution to have had two consecutive female senior leaders well before the principal cluster. The seven years of male leadership since 2017 keeps WHO on the counterexamples list relative to the 2018–2026 cluster.

Sources

• World Health Organization — Past Directors-General
• Hong Kong Department of Health — Past Directors