Foundation for a Smoke-Free World People

This page lists the management, board of directors, previous staff and other key personnel associated with the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.

In September 2020, FSFW updated its website to reflect that it has lost 14 staff members, which represented approximately 38% of its total staff the previous week.¹²

Management

• Clifford E. Douglas is President and Chief Executive Officer. Douglas was formerly director of the University of Michigan’s Tobacco Research Network and the American Cancer Society’s National Vice President for Tobacco Control.³
• Heidi Goldstein is Executive Vice-President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer.¹
• Ehsan Latif is the Foundation’s Vice President for Grant Management and Development (previously Program Director Health and Smoking Control). Latif formerly worked for the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.¹⁴
• Nicole Bradley is the Foundation’s Vice President for Communications (formerly Director for Communications). Bradley spent six years at Pepsi managing their media relations.¹
• Candida Nakhumwa is Country Director, Malawi for FSFW. She is responsible for managing strategic partnerships in Malawi’s agricultural sector. Nakhumwa previously worked for the Farmers Union of Malawi and the National Smallholder Farmers Association. Her profile was moved from “Staff” to “Executive Team” in September 2020.¹

An up-to-date listing of FSFW staff can be found on its website.

Board of Directors

• Pamela Parizek is the Foundation’s Board Chair and Managing Director at The Claro Group consultancy. Parizek has previously worked for KPMG, and Kroll Inc, a corporate investigations and risk consultancy firm.⁵⁶
• Vandana Abramson is Associate Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with a specialism in breast cancer.⁵
• Dyborn Chibonga is Regional Head for Malawi and Mozambique at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).⁵ Chibonga was also on the Board of Directors of the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC) from 2010.⁷
• Paul Gardner is the former Chairman of advertising firm Grey Group Australia and New Zealand, a WPP company.⁵ Since 2012 he runs his own business consulting company, specialising in “branding and marketing communications as well as greenfield start-ups in Australia and overseas”.⁸
• Corinna Lathan is the founder and CEO of AnthroTronix Inc, an engineering research and development company that develops products “in digital health, wearable technology, robotics, and augmented reality”.⁵
• Angela Marshall Hofmann is the founder and president of World Strategies, a government affairs and policy consultation firm. Hofmann is also the Executive Co-Director and spokesperson for Farmers for Free Trade which lobbies for free trade agreements to support American farmers. She began her career as a senatorial advisor before working for supermarket giant Walmart where she ended up as a Vice President for International Corporate Affairs.⁵ The headquarters of World Strategies is only a few miles from Walmart’s Arkansas base.

An up-to-date listing of the Foundation’s board members can be found on its website.

The appointed Board has no known direct tobacco industry links. In an open letter, former FSFW President Derek Yach stated that the appointed Board of Directors are “subject to stringent conflicts of interest policy. No Board member can have ties to tobacco companies. The Directors will receive reimbursement for their expenses and a modest honorarium for their service”.⁹

Previous Board Members and Management Staff

Senior Staff Departures

• David Janazzo was Interim Co-President and Executive Vice President of Operations and Finance and Chief Financial Officer of FSFW.¹⁰ As of October 2023 he was no longer listed on the FSFW team members page.¹¹
• William R. True was Chief Health, Science & Technology Officer and has held senior positions in tobacco, “e-vapor” and cannabis extraction industries.¹²Between 2002 and 2015 True was Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Lorillard Tobacco Company.¹³
• Amy Curry was the Foundation’s Chief of Staff.¹
• Derek Yach was the President of the Foundation and the former Head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Tobacco Free Initiative. He was also Senior Vice President of Global Health and Agriculture Policy at PepsiCo.¹
• Brian Erkkila was the Foundation’s Vice President for Health, Science and Technology. Prior to that he spent seven years at the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products.² Erkkila left the Foundation to become Director of Regulatory Science at Swedish Match.¹⁴
• Pamela Appel was Senior Director, Scientific Exchange and Communications. She had only joined the FSFW in October 2020.¹⁵
• Michael J. Paskow was Senior Manager, Health Research, Health, Science, and Technology²

Two board members left the FSFW board of directors in 2020

• Darshita Gillies is also a Director at Blu Dot Advisory and Founder and CEO of Maanch,⁵ a platform which ‘matches donors and charities’ to work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.¹⁶
• Zoe Feldman was the Managing Director at Almanac Investments and previously worked for PepsiCo for eight years.¹⁷ Feldman was no longer listed on the FSFW website as a board member as of August 2020.

Three executive team members were removed from FSFW’s website in September and October 2020:²

• Carolyn “C.B.” Blanckmeister was Chief Health Technology Officer. She is an immunologist, and was previously employed at Pfizer, GSK and Roche pharmaceutical companies.²
• Nitin Mittal was Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. He has a background in strategy management and previously worked at the Bill and Melinda Gates Global Good Fund, PATH, Microsoft and General Electric.
• Jim Lutzweiler was Vice President of Agriculture and Livelihoods at the Foundation, and former Senior Director of Global Public Policy at PepsiCo.

Additional staff departures included:²

• Charles Gardner, Director, Health, Science and Technology
• Rob Henning, Director, Agriculture and Economic Diversification Programmes
• Michael Johnson, Director of Agricultural Science, Technology and Innovation
• Sarah Rajkumar, Director, Epidemiology, Health, Science and Technology
• Alexandra Solomon, Gender Specialist
• Matthew Waterson, Director, Operations and Security

All staff from the Agricultural and Economic Diversification Programme were also removed from FSFW’s staff page, as well as several assistant positions.²

FSFW appeared to have a high turnover of staff. A website update in September 2020 indicated that it had lost 14 staff members, nearly 40% of its staff, in one week.¹²

Previous Departures

• Heather Majewski was the Foundation’s Vice President for Shared Initatives (formally ‘Global Initiatives’ and prior to that’ Global Services’.² Her profile was removed from the FSFW website in February 2020.
• Ramla Benmaamar was Director, Global Scientific Affairs. She was removed from the FSFW website in February 2020.
• Tom Harding was the Foundation’s Chief Operating Officer (previously listed as Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Financial Officer).¹⁸¹⁹. Harding was no longer listed on the website as of August 2019
• Martin Skancke was on the Foundation’s Board of Directors. He was no longer listed on the website as of August 2019. Skancke is the founder and General Manager of Consulting, having previously worked for the Norwegian Ministry of Finance and consultancy firm McKinsey.²⁰
• Andrew MacLeod is co-founder of Brexit Advisory Services, Visiting Professor at King’s College London in War and Security Studies, and Chair of Griffin Law.²¹ He was on the Board of Directors at the Foundation until February 2019.²²
• Farhad Riahi was the Foundation’s Chief Health, Science and Technology Officer until 2019. Prior to that he was a Partner at consultancy firm McKinsey.²³
• Michael Sagner, a physician and Chairman of the European Society of Preventive Medicine, was a member of the Foundation’s Board until June 2018.²⁴²⁵
• Lisa Gable was also previously a member of the Foundation’s Board, but was no longer listed as such in January 2019.²⁶ Gable is a former US ambassador and Chairman Emeritus of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF), “a non-profit organization that aims to reduce obesity among children in the United States.” The Board of Directors of the HWCF includes executives from Nestle, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and General Mills.²⁷
• Mica Wilson was Vice President of Marketing and Communications at the Foundation. Before this, Wilson was Director of Global health at PepsiCo.²⁸ Wilson was no longer listed on the Foundation’s pages as an employee in January 2019.
• Alastair Bradstock, previously Director of the International Tobacco Control Programme at Cancer Research UK,²⁹ was working in the Health and Agriculture Team of the Foundation. Bradstock was no longer listed on the Foundation’s pages as an employee in January 2019.

Relevant Links

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World homepage
• Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids’ Industry Watch on the Foundation
• Read STOP’s report on PMI and the Foundation: Addiction at Any Cost

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: How it Frames Itself
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Centres of Excellence
• Philip Morris International
• Front Groups
• Influencing Science

TCRG Research

• The Philip Morris-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: tax return sheds light on funding activities, T. Legg, S. Peeters, P. Chamberlain, A. Gilmore, The Lancet, 6 June 2019
• Big Tobacco is funding the anti-smoking lobby but leaked documents reveal the real reason why, A. Rowell, The Conversation, 13 March 2018