Jimmy Kolker

Amb. Jimmy Kolker served as Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2014 to 2017. In this role, he was the Department's Chief Health diplomat, representing the United States at World Health Organization and Global Fund meetings. Amb. Kolker had a 30-year diplomatic career with the U.S. Department of State where he served as the U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso (1999-2002) and to Uganda (2002-2005). From 2005 to 2007 he was Deputy U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, leading the implementation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

From 2007-2011, Amb. Kolker was Chief of the AIDS Section at UNICEF's New York headquarters. He was Deputy Chief of Mission at U.S. embassies in Denmark and Botswana and won awards for political reporting at earlier posts in the UK, Sweden, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.

Now retired, Amb. Kolker is a non-resident senior associate with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center and a fellow of Georgetown's Center for Global Health Science and Security. He is currently serving part-time as Senior Advisor in the office of the Coordinator for Global Covid Response and Health Security, working on multilateral health diplomacy and new State Department organization options for global health leadership.