Northwestern Events Calendar

Feb
22
2016

Managing Global Health Challenges Guest Speaker Jeff Richardson and Cathy Ackerman: AbbVie

When: Monday, February 22, 2016
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM CT

Where: Annenberg Hall, G15, 2120 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208 map it

Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students

Contact: Rebecca Haines   (847) 467-4914

Group: Global Health Studies

Category: Global & Civic Engagement

Description:

Cathy joined Abbott in 1992 and has held several positions at Abbott including a unique mix of audit, finance, IT, sales, marketing, pharmacy, distribution, International and strategic planning /execution experience. When Abbott split into two companies in 2013, Cathy moved to AbbVie, the “new” 125 year old pharmaceutical company as the Director of Global Grants & Charitable Donations and the VP of the AbbVie Foundation.

As Vice President of the AbbVie Foundation, Cathy is responsible for all operational and governance aspects of running the private Foundation. She has a team of grant managers who works closely with the program managers of the Foundation who act as the primary interface with the grantees. Together we ensure that the grantees have in place the systems/infrastructure they need to achieve the stated goals to support the underserved, and deliver on measureable impacts as defined in the grant agreements. The main focus areas of the AbbVie Foundation include: building stronger communities; strengthening health systems and support effective educational programs. In her role as Director, Global Grants and Charitable Donation for AbbVie, Cathy has responsibility for the support of all Independent Medical Education and Patient Education grants as well as operational support for the philanthropic charitable donations made by AbbVie in the US.

Prior to joining Abbott, she was a Financial and IT auditor at Ernst & Young. Cathy attended the University of Indianapolis and received her BS in Accounting as well as an AS in Management Information Systems. Cathy is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Jeff Richardson, Vice President of the AbbVie Foundation, oversees its international programs in resource poor settings throughout the world. In January of 2013, Abbott split into two companies and two foundations. Jeff moved from the Abbott Fund to the new AbbVie Foundation. Jeff started the Abbott Fund’s international granting program when he led the team that created, developed and implemented the Fund’s Global AIDS Care Program in 2000. In the last fourteen years the Global AIDS Care Program has served more than 7 million people and invested more than $285 million. The AbbVie Foundation focuses its giving in the area of health systems strengthening, advancing education and building stronger communities with a special focus on HIV/AIDS, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), liver diseases, and oncology.

Jeff served under Governor Evan Bayh as Secretary of the 13,000-person Indiana Family and Social Services Administration and as Commissioner of the 900-person Indiana Department of Human Services. Prior to that, he was the Executive Director of the GMHC, the largest U.S. AIDS service organization, where he had been a volunteer ten years earlier. Jeff also was a managing director in Burson-Marsteller’s U.S. healthcare practice. Jeff has been an adjunct professor at Indiana University and the City University of New York and currently teaches as a guest lecturer at Northwestern University on global health issues. Jeff started his professional career at Eli Lilly & Company. He received all three of his degrees – JD in Law, MPA in Public Administration and BA in History -- from Indiana University.
He is known for having coined the phrase; radical incrementalism.

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