New Chief Program and Innovation Officer appointed at Helen Keller International

The global health organization Helen Keller International has announced the appointment of Dr. Emmanuel d’Harcourt as its new Chief Program and Innovation Officer.

Dr. d’Harcourt assumed the post on August 12, 2019 and is based in the organization’s New York headquarters. He succeeded Helen Keller International’s former Senior Vice President of Programs, Victoria Quinn, who stepped down in January 2019 after more than 12 years of service.

Dr. d’Harcourt is a pediatrician and public health expert with over 20 years of international experience. As Senior Health Director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), d’Harcourt provided strategic direction for primary health and environmental health programmes serving over 20 million people in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He led a team of 60 public health professionals who were responsible for technical oversight of programme quality and impact in 23 countries. Under his leadership as Senior Child Survival Technical Advisor at the IRC, a post he held for seven years, the child health programme grew from a single district in one country to one of the organization’s largest programmes.

“We were determined to hire a transformative, strategic Chief Program and Innovation Officer during a critical time when Helen Keller International aims to accelerate our impact and improve access to health care for the most vulnerable communities,” said Kathy Spahn, President and CEO of Helen Keller International. “Dr. d’Harcourt’s track record of exceptional leadership responding to major public health challenges such as the West Africa Ebola crisis—and his experience forming strong teams to strengthen health systems and data to improve child survival—made him an outstanding choice.”

Dr. d’Harcourt most recently served as a consultant for Vital Health Strategies, where he led an initiative to develop early childhood development programming for children living in cities in low- and middle-income countries.
Dr. d’Harcourt received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University, his master’s degree in public health from Harvard University, and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University. He serves on the advisory boards for the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health and the Brown University Humanitarian Innovation Initiative and is a member of the Funding Committee for Research for Health in Humanitarian Crisis.

He has also worked as a clinician, researcher, outbreak responder, lecturer, and manager for organizations including the Pasteur Institute, Columbia University, and Princeton University. A dual French and American national, he began his career in international development as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal and has since lived and worked in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, focusing on child and maternal health, conflict recovery, data, and health systems.

“I am deeply honored to join this incredible organization and contribute to its legacy of high-impact, science-based, large-scale, innovative public health programming helping to lift vulnerable communities out of poverty,” said d’Harcourt. “I cannot wait to get to work with my colleagues to realize Helen Keller’s vision of a world without barriers to health, sight, and human potential.”