Derk Sauer joins HCI’s Honorary Advisory Board

27-04-2009

HCI is delighted to announce that Derk Sauer, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Independent Media Sanoma Magazines, has agreed to join its Honorary Advisory Board. By joining this distinguished group of advisors, Mr Sauer shows his support of HCI’s efforts to strengthen healthcare systems and to combine the innovative use of ICT and traditional development aid models to address HIV, TB and drug use issues in resource-poor settings.

Mr Sauer had the following to say about HCI’s efforts: ‘With UNAIDS, I strongly believe that the media has tremendous reach and influence, particularly among young people who represent the future and who are the key to any successful response to HIV and tuberculosis. High-quality media coverage of AIDS and TB depends on the presence of motivated and informed journalists and leadership within the media hierarchy. The innovative use of information and communications technologies (ICT), such as that used by Health Connections International, and the use of new media networks have powerful roles to play in the responses to these killer diseases'.

Mr Sauer began his career in journalism as a correspondent for the Dutch magazine Nieuwe Revu, covering conflicts in Beirut, Vietnam, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Angola and Northern Ireland. He originally visited Moscow at the invitation of Soviet journalists, and stayed on to experience the shifting media culture in the post-Soviet era. He founded Independent Media in the 1990s, a company that grew from the publisher of one English-language newspaper into a venture responsible for the production of 25 magazines and newspapers in Russia, including the Russian versions of such popular English-language magazines as Cosmopolitan and the Harvard Business Review.

He currently serves as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Independent Media Sanoma Magazines publishing house.

HCI thanks Mr Sauer for his support of our efforts and welcomes him to the HCI Board of Honorary Advisors.