Holzworth Named Consortium’s Global Health Champion
May 9, 2018
Gillings School of Global Public Health
Donald A. Holzworth, executive in residence and adjunct professor of health policy and management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, was selected recently as the Triangle Global Health Consortium’s 2018 Global Health Champion. The annual award recognizes career-long commitment to the advancement of global health.
As an entrepreneur and philanthropist, Holzworth has dedicated his career to establishing organizations devoted to improving health around the world. In 1983, he founded Constella Group, a leading global provider of public health policy, clinical development and implementation services operating in more than 60 countries.
In 2001, he founded Expression Analysis, a genomic services company.
In 2011, he established Giving Positively, a nonprofit organization that provides vocational scholarships to HIV-positive young adults in Kampala, Uganda, and co-founded Veritas Collaborative, a specialty behavioral hospital system serving adolescents and adults with severe eating disorders.
Holzworth, who is chair of the Gillings School’s Advisory Council, also is entrepreneur in residence for the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network, advisory board member for the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute for Private Enterprise, and adviser to Hatteras Venture Partners and Bull City Venture Partners. He is chair of Health Decisions Inc., a specialty clinical research organization, and executive chair of Bivarus Inc., a patient-centered analytics company. In 2008, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
He and his wife, Jennifer Holzworth, are passionate about developing the next generation of public health leaders. They have established a distinguished professorship to support the director of the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Premier Graduate Fellowship to support a doctoral student conducting groundbreaking climate change research, and numerous scholarships to support doctoral students in the Gillings School’s Public Health Leadership Program.
“Don Holzworth so deserves this recognition of his global accomplishments,” said Barbara K. Rimer, dean of the Gillings School. “He is the perfect embodiment of what we mean when we use the term ‘local and global.’ Don and the team he assembled built companies that made a positive difference around the world, and they did it on a huge, impressive scale. Don parlayed his knowledge and skills to benefit the Gillings School and the University of North Carolina by helping to develop the entrepreneurial skills of our faculty, staff and students. He and Jennifer also established a foundation that benefits young people in Africa [Giving Positively] while they invested in the education of our students as well.”
“To be recognized locally by those who work globally is an extraordinary honor and shows the power of our work,” Holzworth said. “My passion for public health continues to be fueled by working with people who are committed to public health research and to strategies for the implementation of effective solutions. All of us are proud to be able to influence our next generation of public health leaders.”
The Triangle Global Health Consortium is a nonprofit member organization representing institutions and individuals from academia, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and the international health development nongovernmental organization community. Founded in 2009 as a partnership between Duke University, North Carolina State University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, IntraHealth International, RTI International, FHI360 and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the Consortium seeks to facilitate greater cooperation among individuals and institutions, thus increasing their collective capacity to address and improve the health of underserved populations through collaborative research and the implementation of innovative solutions.
Holzworth and other global health awards winners were honored at a reception on May 2 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.