New trustees join Transaid board

International development organisation Transaid has welcomed two new trustees to its board, bringing significant experience and its first member from Uganda – a country where Transaid has operated long term road safety and access to health care programmes.

Dr Olive Kobusingye, a Senior Research Fellow at Makerere University School of Public Health, and Gavin Williams, Managing Director, UK & Ireland of GXO, join a diverse team of 13 trustees with collective experience spanning international development, governance, road safety, supply chain and transport and logistics.

Olive has spent the last 10 years at Makerere University School of Public Health in the Head, Trauma, Injury and Disability Unit, working on various projects including investigating risk and protective factors for motorcycle injuries in Kampala and improving the evidence for pedestrian safety in Uganda.

Between 2010 and 2016, she was also Board Chair and Head of Secretariat at the Road Traffic Injury Network, a global road safety research agency working to reduce the burden of road traffic injuries. She also worked for the World Health Organisation between 2003 and 2008 as African Regional Advisor for violence and injury prevention.

Gavin first became actively involved with Transaid in 2009, when he cycled 420km from Lusaka to Victoria Falls as a member of a team taking part in Transaid’s Cycle Zambia challenge. With close to 30 years of experience in the logistics sector, his current role sees him lead the UK and Ireland’s logistics business of GXO, the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider (GXO spun-off from XPO Logistics on 2nd August, 2021).

Jo Godsmark, Chairperson of Transaid, says: “It is fantastic to welcome both Olive and Gavin to the board. Olive has been engaged with Transaid for five years, after Makerere University received a small grant from our innovation fund and delivered excellent work on post-crash response. She brings considerable expertise in road safety and access to healthcare research and programming in sub-Saharan Africa, and is highly respected in her field.

“Gavin’s appointment is also strategically important for Transaid, ensuring one of our longstanding corporate members and a major global logistics company is represented on the board. It is a real credit to the Transaid team that such senior business leaders are eager to become actively involved in steering Transaid’s life-saving work.”

Olive and Gavin join Jo and fellow trustees Joan Aitken, John Gurr, Bill Howie, Alan Hunt, James Keeler, Maeve Magner, Ishmael Muchemenyi, Phidelia Mwaba, Paul Orme and Helen Varma on the board.

For profiles of all trustees, visit: https://www.transaid.org/home/about-us/our-team/.