- Source: Gisela Abbam
Gisela Maame Abbam FRSA is a Ghanaian-British businesswoman working in both the private and public sector who has focused on the healthcare industry. She is the first black Chair of the General Pharmaceutical Council, and is the first black chair of the British Science Association. She is a board member of the Bar Standards Board, a commissioner on the National Preparedness Commission as well as a Senior director at Revvity. She is a former Global Executive Director at General Electric and an advisor at National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
Gisela has had an extensive career in both the public and private sectors including NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), and General Electric (otherwise known as GE) where she set up a global function that within a year was generating $600 million with a pipeline of $3 billion; as well as Abt Associates and PerkinElmer. From the UN to the World Bank and all the way to the WTO, Gisela has worked with, advised and negotiated with many multilateral organisations, as well as governments such as Turkey, France, and the US. More recently she hosted the high-level Ukrainian delegation who came to the UK to start the process of rebuilding their security and health systems. Gisela was presented with a Ukrainian medal at this meeting.
Early life and education
Abbam was born in Ghana to H.E Peter Abbam, a high ranking Diplomat and Ambassador and Eileen Abbam (née Dove), a former headmistress at Ridge Church School and a daughter of Frans Dove, a Sierra Leonean Barrister and notable member of the West African Aristocratic Dove Family. She attended Wesley Girls' Senior High School and later She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Education with honours from University of Cape Coast; and an MBA from Middlesex University.
Career
Abbam is a Senior Global Executive and the Chair of the General Pharmaceutical Council, UK. She was also the Chair of the British Science Association. Other boards she serves on include the Bar Standards Board Everywoman and the Briyah Institute. She is a committee member for the Longitude Prize.
She has worked in collaboration with governments, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN, World Bank and others to improve health outcomes. Additionally, she is a subject matter expert in global health solutions, has written more than 50 white papers on various public policy issues, and is a sought-after speaker for International conferences.
Abbam worked at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence early on in her career.
She joined General Electric Healthcare in 2007 where she was the first Head of Government Affairs & Policy for UK & Ireland. She subsequently became the inaugural Global Executive Director for Government Affairs and Policy for General Electric Healthcare and set up the Division globally. She was responsible for the strategic direction of government affairs and policy for GE Healthcare, the then $18 billion business unit of GE that provides transformational medical technologies to health customers in over 100 countries. Gisela drove business growth and initiated over £1 billion new business opportunities over a 5-year period.
In 2009, she initiated and led an early diagnosis campaign in UK with a number of NGO's. This was aimed at aimed at Members of Parliament and resulted in access to direct referral for diagnostics by General Practitioners amongst others as well as gaining the support of then Prime Minister, David Cameron.
She was the founding Chair of the Global Diagnostic Imaging, Healthcare IT & Radiation Therapy Trade Association (DITTA) Global Health Working Group which represents over 600 companies and is focused on working with WHO and the World Bank.
In 2016, she was one of 14 people selected to serve as a Committee Member for the Global Health and the Future Role of the United States – a report for the incoming Trump Administration by the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicines
She was a key part of the team that successfully negotiated trade policy at WTO on the elimination of tariffs on key medical devices to enable increased access for patients in 80 countries.
She was the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Company Officer for Abt Associates, one of the top 20 global research firms and top 40 International development innovators.
She has been the inaugural Executive in her last 4 roles and is successful at creating new functions and making them commercially viable.
She also guest lectures at University College London. She has also guest lectured at Leeds Business School
Honours and awards
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Black British Business person of the year
Iconic Woman creating a better World for All by the Women Economic Forum
100 Women to Watch for FTSE 350 Index Boards by Cranfield
Global Goodwill Ambassador
