Gary trained as a professional nurse and studied Masters in Community Development while working for a non-governmental organization to manage a local health insurance programme in the Philippines. He earned his European Masters in International Health specializing in Health Systems Management as an Erasmus Mundus scholar. This EU scholarship programme was coordinated through the TropMed consortium of universities from which Gary received joint masteral degrees from Queen Margaret University – Edinburgh, University of Copenhagen, and the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) – Amsterdam.
His passion has been in engaging implementers to use global knowledge on systems and structures in meeting their health reform goals. Gary has worked with national and local governments, development partners, think tanks and change agents in finding common ground in health systems improvement merging homegrown expertise with international best practice. His professional work is grounded on collaborating with communities of practice in health service delivery mechanisms, essential service packages, health care financing, policy and governance, and the management of change and reforms. His work in health financing and health insurance programmes have been hands-on dealing with operational issues of equity in the benefit package, inclusivity of the coverage and sustainability of the system. Gary has also taken up the topic of social protection responding to the global call for socially inclusive programmes addressing specifically left-behind populations.
Gary has took on team lead positions in projects in Asia particularly Myanmar and the Philippines and consulted as health system/ health financing expert for Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Yemen and Malawi. He is a seasoned project manager and assumed senior backstopping role for development cooperation projects additionally in Kenya and the Caribbean. Gary has directly overseen complex multi-million projects for the EU as well as for KfW, ADB, WB and GIZ, which at one point had a combined portfolio of 20M Eur. Since 2018, He has been holding a key leadership position in development consulting.
From January 2023, Gary joins the management4heealth team as Director for Health Systems Strengthening – one of the core areas of the organization. This adds credential to his many years in the development work.
