We are a unique bridge between the industry and governments. We strive to create multi-stakeholder collaboration for the future of healthcare. Although specialized in the Latin American context, AHF has had global impact. Our foundation has worked in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.
Americas Health Foundation is a 501 (c)(3), non-profit foundation.
Mission
Through leadership, academic initiatives, medical programming, and awareness activities, AHF promotes increased access to quality healthcare and treatments throughout the Americas and other regions of the world, where unmet needs remain.
Vision
A healthier society with increased access to quality healthcare and treatments through sustainable health policies, public awareness programs, improved physician knowledge, and increased access to medicines worldwide.
INTERNATIONAL ADVISORS
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Dick Salvatierra (President, USA)
Dick’s experience has been in developing productive one-on-one interpersonal relationships and effective Board relations with non-profit organizations, private business and government, at different organizational levels. Success in: creating and driving Business Development and Marketing initiatives; planning and directing all aspects of the organizations’ policies, objectives and initiatives. Prior successful executive management and marketing experience as Senior Executive with non-profit organizations, service firms and associations in the areas of Federal government contracting, information dissemination, information clearinghouses, customer support services and Internet startups. Extensive international experience, including Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador and Egypt. Fluent in Spanish.
Prior to forming AHF, Dick was Vice President of Development & Special Projects at the Pan American Health & Education Foundation, Washington, D.C. He is responsible for all development activities within the foundation, designed international business plan, partnership agreements and projects under CSR with major international corporations. Creating different vehicles to expand the reach of the brand, including international conferences, increased online activities and strategic and brand planning. Hired new personnel and introduced multiple internships to support our activities.
Title: Founder & President, Americas Health Foundation
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Enrique Teran (Ecuador)
Dr. Teran is a distinguished Professor at the School of Medicine within the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) in Quito, Ecuador. He obtained his MD degree from the Central University of Ecuador, completed a Master's degree in International Cooperation for Development at the Universidad Internacional de la Rioja in Spain, and earned his Ph.D. from University College London in the UK. With over 25 years of experience as a pharmacologist, his research has focused on vascular factors, infectious diseases, oxidative stress, and pharmacogenetics, specifically within the Ecuadorian population. Dr. Teran has served as the principal investigator or co-investigator on numerous university- and externally-funded grants and has co-authored more than 120 peer-reviewed papers, with an impressive h-index of 26. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Ecuadorian Academy of Sciences and was elected as its president until 2025. In addition, he has also been a member of the Ecuadorian Academy of Medicine since 2017.
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Isabela Werneck (Brazil)
She is the medical coordinator of the pathology team at Rede D, OR-São Luiz in SP.
She is the Latin American coordinator of the study group on renal tumors of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP), and the pathologist in charge of the LARCG (Latin American Renal Cancer Group). She is a member of the Young Medical Leadership Program of the National Academy of Medicine and the World Health Organization's Expert Committee on the Classification of Bone and Soft Tissue Tumors.
PhD in Oncology from the Antonio Prudente Foundation - AC Camargo Cancer Center, she mainly works in the areas of Uropathology, Sarcomas and Molecular Pathology. Her experience includes internships as a pathologist at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, USA), Brighan and Women Hospital-Harvard (Boston, USA), Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, USA) and NIH (Washington, USA). She was Scientific Director and Vice President of the Brazilian Society of Pathology (SBP) for the last 5 years. She is a researcher at IDOR and has extensive academic production with more than 180 papers published abroad with more than 11,000 citations.
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Joff Masukawa (USA)
Joff Masukawa is president and founder of Diligentia, LLC, a life-sciences consultancy that develops commercial business strategies and tactical commercialization requirements for manufacturers of biopharmaceuticals, cell and gene therapies, diagnostics and health tech, and other novel emerging medical innovations. Diligentia also offers federal and state government and public affairs strategy and tactical lobbying support to facilitate client engagement with policymakers and government agencies in support of business objectives.
Prior to founding Diligentia, Joff was Vice President and Global Head of Government Relations and Public Affairs at Shire, where he designed and led strategies to build the company’s brand, engagement and leadership with government representatives and agencies, patient advocacy groups, payors, industry associations and other key external stakeholders.
Joff has held senior level leadership roles spanning commercial and corporate functions, including market access, government and public affairs, patient and provider services, and sales and marketing at Shire, Genzyme, Visible Genetics, Gentiva and Labcorp. He has developed and executed numerous commercial launch strategies for first-in-class products and is an expert at developing and aligning optimal legislative, regulatory and market access solutions to support business objectives. He began as a clinical sales representative for Merck.
He serves on the board of directors of Caregiver Action Network, The Center for Healthcare Innovation, and ICORD, the International Conference on Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs. He is a member of the American Society of Cell and Gene Therapy and the Innovation and Value Initiative.
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Rodrigo Calderon (Mexico)
Calderon, Lopez Figueroa (CLF) is a Communications and Public Relations Consulting Group specialized in the management of Communications, Government Affairs and Institutional Relations in the field. Rodrigo has held positions as Director Corporate Relations and Advertising for Alcatel Business Systems in France and as a Marketing Director for American Express Company in Mexico. For 15 years, Rodrigo was the VP of Public Affairs and Communications for Latin America at the Coca-Cola Company and the President of the Coca-Cola Foundation in Mexico.
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Stephen Salvatierra (USA)
Stephen Salvatierra is a landscape architect in Atlanta, GA. He graduated from the University of Georgia with a bachelor's degree in Landscape Architecture from the School of Environmental and Design in 2013. He is a designer and project manager in the commercial industry. He was a part of the design team for projects such as Avalon, 1105 West Peachtree, Colony Square, and The Works. Stephen helps create outdoor experiences throughout the projects with his passion for Landscape Architecture.
Stephen is pursuing and working on fundraising activities in Atlanta through his commercial development clientele along with major companies headquartered in Atlanta such as Delta, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS, and many more.
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Stephen Stefani (Chairman, Brazil)
Oncologist doctor. Former Fellow at the University of California/Stanford. Specialist in Medical Auditing and Health Economics. First president of the Brazil chapter of the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research (ISPOR). Former Chair of the Latin American Committee of ISPOR. Member of the international committee of The Lancet. Professor at the UNIMED Faculty Foundation. Coordinator of NATAC - High Cost Technology Assessment Center at UNIMED RS.
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Valderilio Feijo Azevedo (Brazil)
Dr. Val Feijo Azevedo is a professor of Rheumatology in the Department of Internal Medicine- Hospital de Clínicas at the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil (MD, PhD, MBA, MSc Professor of Rheumatology at The Federal University of Parana). His specialization is in biotechnology. Dr. Azevedo has been a speaker about biologic medicines and clinical research in many national events. He currently serves as a member of the International Medical advisory board on Biosimilars of Pfizer Inc. (USA) and Merck-Serono.
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Virginia Abello (Colombia)
Former President of the Board of Directors of the Colombian Association of Hematology and Oncology (2019-2022), Dr. Virginia Abello is an internist and hematologist graduated from the University Foundation of Health Sciences. She holds a Master's degree in hematopoietic progenitor transplantation, acquired from the University of Valencia. Virginia is the leader of the Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma Functional Unit of the Center for Cancer Treatment and Research (CTIC) Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo. Her special interests include Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, Medullary Aplasia, Multiple Myeloma, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, and Hematopoietic Progenitor Transplantation.
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Angela Jansen PhD (USA)
Angela investigated novel approaches to immunology, infectious diseases, and public health in laboratories in the United States and England. She moved out of the laboratory and into the project management and writing space, working with startups and professional organizations combatting food insecurity and health inequity. Angela has written original research manuscripts, regulatory documents, review articles, and book chapters. Her areas of interest range from vaccine development and sustainability to inherited rare diseases. She currently lives in Laguna Beach, California.
Title: Medical Writer.
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Cinthia Galvao (Brazil)
Cínthia is passionate about languages, entertainment, and communication. She has a bachelor’s degree in Translation studies, from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. She has been working with translation and proofreading since 2014.
With an extensive background on social media, editing, video making, and technology, Cínthia has been involved with work on digital platforms for over a decade.
Title: Associate
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Dick Salvatierra (President, USA)
Dick’s experience has been in developing productive one-on-one interpersonal relationships and effective Board relations with non-profit organizations, private business and government, at different organizational levels. Success in: creating and driving Business Development and Marketing initiatives; planning and directing all aspects of the organizations’ policies, objectives and initiatives. Prior successful executive management and marketing experience as Senior Executive with non-profit organizations, service firms and associations in the areas of Federal government contracting, information dissemination, information clearinghouses, customer support services and Internet startups. Extensive international experience, including Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador and Egypt. Fluent in Spanish.
Prior to forming AHF, Dick was Vice President of Development & Special Projects at the Pan American Health & Education Foundation, Washington, D.C. He is responsible for all development activities within the foundation, designed international business plan, partnership agreements and projects under CSR with major international corporations. Creating different vehicles to expand the reach of the brand, including international conferences, increased online activities and strategic and brand planning. Hired new personnel and introduced multiple internships to support our activities.
Title: Founder & President, Americas Health Foundation
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Felicitas Colombo (USA)
Felicitas has been involved in Public Affairs ventures for issues-prone industries with regional and global impact for the past two decades. As a graduate of the London School of Economics Executive Master of Public Administration, Felicitas addresses current fundamental socio-economic and political challenges in governance, regulatory analysis, policy design and evaluation. Skilled in identifying the viability of projects, developing tangible criteria for success and producing measurable results, while defining an attainable vision for the future and building consensus from different stakeholders through effective platforms that convey evidence-based information.
Concerned with governance, anti-corruption and successful reform processes applicable in a broad range of public and private settings. Felicitas is a Certified Auditors ISO 37001 Anti-Bribery Management Systems & ISO 19600 Compliance Management Systems.
Founder of Intelligethics LLC, which provides consulting services in strategic communications, institutional relations, stakeholder engagement, regulatory and policy analysis, governance, reputation management and positioning, public opinion and social responsibility, health education, issues & crisis management, market research and media relations. Fluent in English and Spanish. French and Portuguese proficiency.
Title: Public Affairs Advisor
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Gayatri Sanku (USA)
Gayatri is an MD-PhD Candidate at Georgetown University and the University of Illinois at Chicago interested in infectious disease, immunology and emerging technologies. During her time as a David L. Boren Fellow in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she explored health system practices and biosecurity applications while developing language proficiency in Brazilian Portuguese. She has consulted for the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the World Bank Group in the areas of health system resiliency and improving Next Generation Sequencing access worldwide.
Title: Moderator
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Marcela Santos (Colombia)
Marcela is a dedicated Psychologist with a Master's degree in Social Inclusion of People with Disabilities, boasting over a decade of professional experience. Her career has been centered on the welfare of individuals with disabilities, working diligently in both public and private sectors as well as NGOs. She has a proven track record of creating and managing successful strategic alliances, consistently driving growth and success.
Beyond her professional endeavors, Marcela is an enthusiastic Advocate for the inclusion and rights of people with disabilities. She is a public speaker and holds the role of a Board Member at the International Alliance of ALS/MND, demonstrating her deep commitment to making a positive impact on a global scale.
Title: Project Manager
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Mariana Rico Restrepo (Colombia)
Dr. Mariana Rico is a physician based in Bogota, Colombia with experience in public health policy implementation, focusing on identifying deficiencies in health institutions and project development for healthcare extension and optimization.
Her ongoing commitment to public health and equal access has led her to work with multiple underserved rural communities across Colombia, developing and implementing strategic integrated healthcare strategies based on population health diagnostics to optimize healthcare potential in some of Colombia’s most vulnerable populations.
Title: Regional Medical Director
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Thais Vidal (USA)
Our Director of Marketing Communications, Thais, based in Los Angeles, CA, has over 3 years of experience in the administrative field. Following her passion for languages, literature, and writing, she graduated from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais with a Bachelor’s degree in English. In Brazil, her native country, she was a teacher of English as a Second Language for over five years. Multilingual, she is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and French.
Title: Director of Marketing Communications
The AHF will work with entities wanting to support governments in accomplishing their public health goals. These entities could be part of the private or the not-for-profit sectors. AHF will help translate the needs of the governments into actionable projects. Additionally, AHF will work with these organizations to seek funding for the proposed projects to be implemented. Moreover, AHF will seek the best partners to execute the projects on time and on budget, honoring the quality, transparency, and collaboration elements required by governments.