Ahmed Ogwell

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Ahmed E. Ogwell Ouma (born 1969) is a Kenyan public health expert who focuses on health policy, health security, global health diplomacy, and preventing non-communicable diseases. He is the chief executive officer and president of VillageReach, a nonprofit that strengthens primary health care to reach communities that are hard to reach. He previously served as Vice President for Global Health Strategy at the UN Foundation and was the acting Director/CEO and later Deputy Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). Earlier in his career, he worked for the World Health Organization for about a decade and held leadership roles at Kenya’s Ministry of Health. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Academy for Public Health.

Ogwell grew up in Mombasa, Kenya. He studied at Lenana School in Nairobi, earned a Bachelor of Dental Surgery and a Master of Public Health from the University of Nairobi, and holds an MPhil in International Health from the University of Bergen (2000).

At Africa CDC, he led operations during the COVID-19 pandemic and advocated for Africa’s New Public Health Order, a plan for Africa to set its own health priorities and invest local resources first, inviting partners to fill gaps. He also helped organize Africa’s first in-person International Conference on Public Health in Africa and has led tobacco-control work at the World Health Organization.

Personal: He is married with children.