Dara Erck

Dara Erck is the Founder & CEO of SAM+LEO. She is a global health strategy specialist with a career dedicated to R&D solutions for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, cholera and ebola. Dara spent much of her career as a consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Global Health R&D Advocacy. She worked with the foundation to advocate for increased spending for global health R&D as well as to promote innovative financing for product development. She also served as a Senior Advisor to Made By Dyslexia, a nonprofit launched by Richard Branson to bring awareness and support to the 1 out of 10 children affected by dyslexia.

In addition to working in global health, Dara is passionate about government reform and democratization. She has been an election supervisor with the Organization for Security and Cooperation since 1997 in Armenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine.

Dara holds a Master’s of International Finance and Business from Columbia University in New York and a Bachelor of Arts in International Economics and Politics from The George Washington University in Washington, DC.