Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Announces Elizabeth Lule to Lead Family Planning Program

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SEATTLE (April 25, 2013) — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that Elizabeth Lule has been named director of the Family Planning program. She will start work at the foundation on June 17.

“I am pleased to welcome Elizabeth to the foundation,” said Chris Elias, president of Global Development. “She is a highly effective leader with deep experience in population and development, reproductive health and family planning, maternal and child health, HIV and TB, and women’s empowerment. She will help the foundation and its partners increase access to family planning information and contraceptives for millions more women in the world’s poorest countries.”

Lule comes to the foundation from the World Bank where she served most recently as Regional Integration Interim Director and Manager for the Africa Region. Prior to that, she was the World Bank’s advisor for Population, Reproductive, Maternal, and Child Health. Prior to the World Bank, she served as Pathfinder International’s Regional Vice President for Africa where she was responsible for strategy development, fundraising and the design, management, implementation, and evaluation of Pathfinder’s family planning, maternal and child health, and HIV programs in the region.  

A Ugandan national, Lule earned a B.S. in Public Administration and Sociology from the University of Southampton and an M.S. in Medical Demography from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and London School of Economics.

About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

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