Mainstreaming Scaling: Grand Challenges Canada

Leeat Gellis

Leeat is the Director of Social Finance at Grand Challenges Canada where she oversees the organization’s impact investment strategy and implementation. Prior, she was the Director of Global Health Innovation where she oversaw a 300+ portfolio of investments through GCC’s Transition to Scale and seed programs.

Leeat brings robust experience in social finance, having previously worked with organizations like Social Capital Partners and Grassroots Business Fund. She is a member of the Hamilton Community Foundation’s Investment Committee, Criterion Institute’s Advisory board on Shifting Narratives in Innovative Finance and the Transform Health Fund Advisory committee. Formerly, she was a long-standing member of SVX’s Issuer Review Committee and Co-Chair of Acumen’s Toronto chapter. Leeat has an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto where she designed and lectured the school’s first undergraduate course on impact investing.

Tunji Eleso

As Director, Scale and Sustainability, Tunji leads the creation of bridges between the supply of GCC-supported innovations and the demand for solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. His approach focuses on honoring GCC’s collaborative advantage in the innovation ecosystem and increases the likelihood of scale and sustainability of GCC-supported innovations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Kristin Neudorf

Kristin Neudorf is the Director of Knowledge Management & Translation at Grand Challenges Canada. Under Kristin’s leadership, Grand Challenges Canada has developed a robust approach to Knowledge Management & Translation, which supports the achievement of GCC’s mission and strategic goals. This includes impact measurement for Grand Challenges Canada’s investments in innovations that improve the lives of underserved people in low-resource settings, and strategic, organization-wide learning initiatives.

Prior to joining Grand Challenges Canada, Kristin built a career in research and program evaluation, working with both non-profit organizations and academic institutions to evaluate the outcomes of health and development programs around the world. Her experience in the non-profit sector includes developing monitoring and evaluation systems and processes, and leading program evaluations. Kristin’s work has taken her countries throughout Asia and Africa, and she has led field work in Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, South Africa and China. Kristin holds a Master’s in Science in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, a Diploma in International Project Management from Humber Business School, and a Bachelor’s in Biology and Development Studies from Queen’s University.

Abigail Aruna

Abigail Aruna is the CEO of Clean Team Ghana Limited, (CTGL) a social enterprise that provides dignified toilets to low-income urban households in Kumasi: an alternative to public toilets that improves sanitation, convenience, dignity, whilst offering direct daily cost savings to the user. She is a Supply Chain professional with an MSc in Supply Chain Management and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Geography and Rural Development from the School of Business and the Department of Geography and Rural Development at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi. She has over 10 years of experience in waste management, value chain leadership and occupational health and safety.

Abigail was the second employee to join Clean Team in 2012 and has been an integral part of its growth from 100 users to more than 16,000 today. She was the head of our Operations Department leading the operational side of the business to provide dignified toilets to low-income urban households in Kumasi. 

Abigail is a 2021 Mandela Washington Fellow of the Young Africa Leadership Initiative by the US Embassy and a West Africa Acumen Fellow 2022. She is passionate about leading Clean Team to become a sustainable sanitation business that provides dignified toilets for all across Africa. She is also keen to mentor and support the growth of a new breed of authentic leaders for Africa.

Dr. Nelson Gitonga

Dr. Nelson Gitonga is the founder and CEO of Insight Health Advisors, a Kenyan health systems development firm. He has extensive experience in the areas of health systems strengthening, public-private sector engagement, health markets development, and public sector scaling of priority and demand driven innovations. He has over 30 years of health sector and health markets experience spanning both the public and private health sectors, and global health development agencies’ programs (USAID, KfW, WB/IFC/GFF, DANIDA, DFID/FCDO, MfM and GCC).

He has provided technical and strategic advice to various ministries of health, subnational health authorities, healthcare investors, and healthcare insurers and providers in SSA and SE Asia. His focus has been on health systems and health markets development in areas such as health policy and regulatory reforms, supply chain and commodity management improvement, healthcare leadership and institutional strengthening, provider network development, healthcare financing reforms to achieve UHC, public private engagement/ collaboration to address priority needs and public sector scaling of demand driven innovations.

His primary goal is to improve the performance of health systems and markets to facilitate greater access to and utilisation of quality healthcare services, products, and information for better health outcomes. His approach is based on identifying and deploying impactful and innovative interventions at the health system and health market levels that catalyze change and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a health system/market in delivering care. He has facilitated and built various strategic partnerships and platforms between the public and private health sectors and with various local and international actors in health. This has been done through a deliberate emphasis on co-created, demand driven, locally owned, scalable, and cost-effective solutions.

Dr. Gitonga has an MBChB degree from the University of Nairobi Kenya and Postgraduate Diplomas in Health Systems and Healthcare Management from the University of London (UK), Galilee International Management Institute (Israel) and National Insurance Academy (India). He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program of IESE (Spain) and Strathmore Business Schools (Kenya). His country experience includes Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Bangladesh.

MODERATOR: Richard Kohl

For twenty-five years Dr. Richard Kohl has identified and solved complex problems for foundations, social and private enterprises, and international agencies. He is highly valued for his abilities to assess programs, synthesize his findings into compelling narratives, and crystallize them into high impact solutions. For the last fifteen years, he has specialized in developing and implementing scaling and growth strategies. Richard is an internationally recognized thought leader and expert on scaling impact. Dr. Kohl integrates his expertise in scaling up with 25 years as a Buddhist practitioner/teacher and business coach; he works with organizations where they are now. The results are sustainable impact at scale.