Created in 2001 by an initial group of 17 visionary companies under founding President and CEO Richard C. Holbrooke, GBCHealth began its history as the “Global Business Council on HIV/AIDS” and later the “Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria”.

Over our history, GBCHealth has worked with hundreds of companies—individually and in partnership with one other—to tackle the challenges of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, diabetes and other health issues facing the workplace and communities.

GBCHealth’s focus today is consistent with the rapidly changing landscape for private sector involvement in global health. When Ambassador Richard Holbrooke helped found GBCHealth, HIV/AIDS soared at crisis levels and few companies had programs to protect their employees and communities. Today, thanks in part to our work, corporate health programs of all types are increasingly mainstreamed with dedicated staff and resources to deliver them. We’ve seen remarkable progress in the private sector’s role in increasing access to medicines and preventing HIV, TB, malaria and other conditions. We are proud to have helped usher in these improvements.

GBCHealth has worked in collaboration with companies to shape and bring forward the voice of business on issues of key importance to global health. Powerful examples include:

  • Development of a CEO pledge to end workplace HIV stigma and discrimination that was signed by more than 100 CEOs covering 5,000,000 employees
  • 1,000,000 employees directly impacted through HIV, malaria and TB workplace programs
  • More than 750,000,000 people engaged by Public Service Announcements about HIV/AIDS
  • 7 public-private partnerships brokered between companies and governments
  • Successful repeal of the US HIV travel ban, and progressive dismantling of travel restrictions in other countries

Most recently, we have partnered with the Aliko Dangote Foundation and UNFPA to stimulate coordinated business action to address key health issues in Africa. These partnerships increase our ability to work with local businesses and multinationals operating in Africa to ensure that private sector efforts effectively encourage progress towards the achievement of the SDGs.