Jess Ogden

Jess Ogden (she/her) is a seasoned and compassionate leader and sense-maker, focused elevating the inherent power and dignity of women, girls and other vulnerable people globally. For over two decades she has worked to identify specific structural factors and forces that underlie a range of social injustices, including gender inequity, and unequal access to HIV prevention and tuberculosis care. A hallmark of her technical contributions has been helping to expose the cracks in taken for granted “truths” in public health that serve to undermine the effectiveness of programs aimed at improving human health and wellbeing, including the need to rethink and upend assumptions about the vulnerability of women. She served for 6 years on the faculty of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Department of Public Health & Policy. She then served two terms at the International Center for Research on Women in Washington DC, first as a senior researcher on the HIV/AIDS and Development Team, leading research on HIV-related stigma and discrimination in Vietnam among other projects, and then shifting to a variety of operational roles, including leading Business Development at ICRW for over 7 years. For 8 years she ran her own consultancy firm, Ogden Health & Development Connections.