Ghebreyesus is an Ethiopian politician, academic, and public health authority and the first African Director-General of the World Health Organization.

Under his leadership, Ethiopia's Ministry of Health dramatically improved the country's health system by tackling inadequate pharmaceutical services and stock-outs of essential medicines, building a robust community health workforce, transforming weak information systems, and ensuring greater country ownership to ensure sustainability. Under his chairmanship, the Global Fund and RBM both raised record-breaking resources and facilitated reforms to improve institutional effectiveness and accountability. As Co-Chair for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH), he leveraged the collective voice of more than 700 organizations in 75 countries to make MNCH a global priority.