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Americares Partner Summit Virtual Logo
About the Summit

The 2020 Health At the Center Americares Virtual Summit will explore how highly adaptable people and organizations recognize change, assess evolving demands and modify their actions to fit new circumstances. Hosted by CNN Anchor and National Correspondent Erica Hill, featuring Pulitzer Prize winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and will include a panel on Global Health Security, specifically addressing the current COVID-19 pandemic.

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The 2020 Health At the Center Americares Virtual Summit explores how highly adaptable people and organizations recognize change, assess evolving demands and modify their actions to fit new circumstances. Hosted by CNN Anchor and National Correspondent Erica Hill.

Session1

Fireside Chat: Pulitzer-Prize Winning Journalists and Authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn with Erica Hill


Based on their New York Times bestseller, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn will share a harrowing account and detailed look into the epidemic of depression, unemployment, poverty and addiction that is plaguing the working class in America. They are passionate about giving a voice to the voiceless and telling the hard truths that need to be told, including insights into the events that shape our world.

Mother bringing child to Americares clinic on Colombia Venezuela border
Session2

Global Health Security Panel


The coronavirus pandemic has affected the entire world and, more than ever, demonstrates the importance of global health security. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 70 percent of the world remains underprepared to prevent, detect and respond to a public health emergency. This session will focus on infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics, including COVID-19. Panelists will identify early learnings from the COVID-19 outbreak, discuss our vulnerabilities and how we can adapt business and public health practices to prepare for and respond to current and future threats. CNN anchor and correspondent Erica Hill will moderate.

Meet our Virtual Summit Speakers

* Additional speakers will be added as they are confirmed.

Erica Hill

Erica Hill

Veteran morning TV anchor and award-winning journalist Erica Hill serves as CNN lead fill-in anchor and national correspondent. Most recently, she anchored HLN’s On the Story with Erica Hill, a daily, New York-based daytime news program. During her tenure, she covered major news stories on location including, in 2017, the Las Vegas shooting and hurricane Irma from Florida.

Nicolas Krystof and Sheryl WuDunn

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. The team has written a series of best-selling books and appeared in related television documentaries. Their No. 1 best-seller, Half the Sky, called “electrifying” by The Washington Post, draws a compelling picture of the trials and triumphs of women struggling worldwide for opportunity and equality. They followed that with A Path Appears, both a best-selling book and PBS documentary, exploring how people can make a difference at home and abroad. In their new book, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope (2020), they issue a plea to address the crisis in working-class America while also focusing on solutions. Photo by Bob Rozycki

Dr. E. Anne Peterson

Dr. E. Anne Peterson, MD, MPH

Americares Senior Vice President of Global Programs Dr. E. Anne Peterson, MD, MPH, oversees the organization’s health programs for people affected by poverty or disaster, including its work with the uninsured in the United States, its Emergency Response team and its global distribution of medicine and supplies. Each year, the health-focused relief and development organization reaches more than 90 countries, including the United States, with life-changing health programs, medicine and medical supplies.

Shekhar Saxena

Shekhar Saxena 

Shekhar Saxena is Professor of the Practice of Global Mental Health at the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. A psychiatrist by training, he served in the World Health Organization (WHO) for 20 years beginning 1998. From 2010 to 2018 he was the Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at WHO. During his leadership WHO’s Mental Health Action Plan was adopted by the World Health Assembly and mental health and wellbeing was included in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Author of more than 300 academic papers, he was an editor of the Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development 2018. His expertise includes providing evidence-based advice and technical assistance to policy makers on mental health promotion and prevention and management of mental, developmental, neurological and substance use disorders and suicide prevention.

Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Harvey V. Fineberg

Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He previously served as president of the U.S. Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine), as provost of Harvard University, and as dean of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. He devoted most of his academic career to the fields of health policy and medical decision-making. His past research has focused on global health, assessment of medical technology, evaluation and use of vaccines, and dissemination of medical innovations.

Dr. Fineberg currently chairs the board of the Science Philanthropy Alliance and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats.