Melanie Walker

Melanie Walker serves as Senior Adviser to the President and Director of the World Bank Group’s Delivery Unit, which helps monitor corporate performance related to the twin goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. She joined the Bank in February 2013 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she was first senior program officer and then deputy director for special initiatives, conceptualizing key foundation strategies and incubating new programs in health and development. She moved to the Seattle-based Gates Foundation in December 2005 from the World Health Organization after serving in a number of field-based delivery roles. A native of Laredo, Texas, Dr. Walker completed her undergraduate and medical education at the University of Texas; clinical training at Huntington Memorial Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Washington; and post-doctoral study at the California Institute of Technology. She sits on the Executive Board of the American Medical Association Foundation and was recently named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and honored with a Hoffman Endowed Lectureship by the American Academy of Pediatric Neurosurgery.