Institutional oversight and guidance is provided through the Concept Foundation Board of Directors, who provide their significant reproductive and maternal health experience to the organization on a voluntary basis. Our Board  members are well known and highly respected in the field and their support and stewardship play a major role in ensuring the continuing success of Concept.

Board members

Chair: Paul Van Look, MD, PhD, FRCOG
	Paul Van Look, MD PhD FRCOG, is an independent consultant in sexual and reproductive health and Chair of the Board of Directors of Concept Foundation. He is also the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Guttmacher Institute (USA) and the Chair of the Advisory Group on Heat-stable Oxytocin established by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Netherlands. Dr Van Look holds an MD from the University of Ghent (Belgium) and a PhD in reproductive endocrinology from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland); he is also a qualified obstetrician/gynaecologist trained at, among others, the University of Leiden (the Netherlands). In 1984, he joined the UNDP/UNFPA/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction at the World Health Organization¡¦s Headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland) and, from 1998 until his retirement in 2009, he directed the WHO Department of Reproductive Health and Research. Under his leadership the Department grew to an internationally recognized leader in sexual and reproductive health and rights with a staff of some 100 people and an annual budget of about US$30-35 million.
Vice Chair: Gordon Perkin, MD
	Gordon Perkin is a Senior Fellow with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Program (retired 2005). Dr. Perkin has been associated with the foundation since 1995, when the first grants in global health were awarded. From 1999 through 2001, he was responsible for the development and operation of the foundation¡¦s Global Health Program. Over a nineteen year period (1980-1999), Dr. Perkin served as President of the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), an international non-profit organization dedicated to improving health, especially the health of women and children. As a physician with more than 40 years of experience in international health and family planning, Dr. Perkin also spent 14 years with the Ford Foundation, where he worked as program officer in a variety of international health and population projects. He served as a long-term consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) on the design and research strategy of the Special Programme in Human Reproduction, and has consulted with several other WHO programs. He was a member of the Committee on Contraceptive Development of the Institute of Medicine, and a board member of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, and the Global Health Council.
Secretary: Claus P Janisch, MD
	Claus Janisch is a medical doctor, a degree he received in 1975 from the Free University in Berlin. After graduation he became a specialist in Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1981. Working at the University Hospital Berlin, Vienna and Mainz. In 1983 he joined the ? Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit¡¦ (GTZ) in Eschborn, Germany, where he worked till March 1989 as manager of three general hospitals in Saudi Arabia. From April 1989 till December 2005 he was the Senior Medical Advisor at KfW Banking Group in Frankfurt. Claus Janisch was responsible for the professional part of KfW financed health projects. This included project design, monitoring and evaluation of projects and programs, negotiations with ministries of health, national and international donor organizations, NGOs and private sector health institutions. His special interests are Reproductive Health and Family Planning, Contraceptive Supply, and Health Financing Since 2006 he has worked as free lance consultant for various national and international organizations.
Treasurer: Hans Vemer, MD, PhD
	Hans Vemer is an expert in women¡¦s health, trained as an obstetrician/gynaecologist and reproductive endocrinologist, with experience in Europe, the USA and less resourced countries. He has worked in academia at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, with which he is still connected, and in the pharmaceutical industry, at Organon, Schering-Plough and Merck. Presently he is an independent consultant and an executive editor for the Global Library of Women¡¦s Medicine. He is a board member of several non-profit organizations, including ICON (part of IPPF) and Concept Foundation
Claudia Kessler, MD, MPH
	Claudia Kessler (MD, MPH) has shifted from working as a physician to become a public health specialist focusing on international health/SRH in the early nineties. After obtaining a Master degree in Public Health at the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine in 1995, she then worked for 5 years in Southern Senegal for GTZ, in a project that focused on HIV prevention and the promotion of SRH. Dr. Kessler looks back on some ten years work based in various sub Saharan African countries, both in the field of humanitarian aid and development cooperation. Since 2000 Dr Kessler is based in Basel at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), where she is deputy head of the department Swiss Centre for International Health. She has a postgraduate qualification in organisational development, is heading the Sexual and Reproductive Health unit of the Swiss TPH and is also project leader of various advisory and implementation projects. Dr Kessler has conducted international programme evaluations (including HRP/WHO and GTZ supraregional programme on population dynamics). She is in the Swiss delegation to the HRP PCC.
Tim Nielander, LLB
	From 2005 until recently, Tim Nielander served as General Counsel and Managing Director of Corporate Services for the GAVI Alliance (www.gavialliance.org), an international development institution that supports immunization projects in over 70 developing countries. He was responsible for managing legal affairs, an insurance portfolio and corporate services in a coordinated effort with international organizations including WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, foundations, NGOs and government development agencies. Prior to his role at GAVI, he practiced with the Seattle law firm, Preston Gates & Ellis LLP, where he provided counsel to a broad range of clients, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft Corporation, Amazon and T-Mobile. Mr. Nielander serves consultant and advisor for development projects involving parties working across multinational borders. He currently serves as a Board Member and advisor for foundations based in Switzerland, Uganda, Thailand and the US. He is a qualified solicitor in England/Wales and licensed to practice law in the U.S.
Peter Hall
	Mr. Peter Hall qualified as a biochemist at the University of Liverpool and undertook postgraduate studies at the University of London. After four years in the National Health Service in Glasgow, he worked with the World Health Organization from 1972 until 1998, initially in Egypt and Iran and then based in Geneva, Switzerland. He was responsible for research and development of long-acting hormonal contraceptive methods; and advising and assisting governments on increasing contraceptive options and addressing other reproductive health issues by identifying and implementing policy, programmatic and research needs. In 1992, he undertook the Senior Management Programme at the Sloan School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was class president. From 1998-2002, he lead a London-based NGO, Reproductive Health Alliance and then returned to Switzerland where he provided technical support to WHO and UNFPA; undertook assignments for many international NGOs and donor agencies; and worked with Concept Foundation, based in Bangkok, on making available high quality pharmaceutical products at affordable cost necessary for maternal health to women in developing countries. Since 2008, he has been CEO of Concept Foundation, based in Geneva