Tina Flores Tapped to Lead Frontline Health Workers Coalition

This week the Frontline Health Workers Coalition welcomes Tina Flores as its new director. Flores will shepherd in a new phase for the global coalition, one that is more focused on multilateral, regional, and country advocacy and engagement, as well as strategic growth.

The Frontline Health Workers Coalition is an alliance of 42 international organizations urging greater support and strategic investment for all health workers–including nurses, midwives, and community health workers–around the globe. Flores leads the coalition’s secretariat, which is hosted by IntraHealth International. 

"Tina is the right person at the right time to steer the coalition."

“Tina is the right person at the right time to steer the coalition,” says Maqsoda Maqsodi, president and CEO of IntraHealth. “The COVID-19 pandemic brought overdue attention to the critical role of frontline health workers, but there remains a great need for increased and more targeted advocacy to ensure sufficient levels of supported and protected health workers to provide access to primary health care and to prevent the spread of emerging health threats.”

Flores is a veteran of the global health and advocacy fields, with years of experience building and driving coalitions to advance critical issues, including noncommunicable diseases, global health security, universal health coverage, and social determinants of health. Most notably, she established and led the secretariat for the Private Sector Roundtable for Global Health Security, a cross-industry coalition that mobilizes companies to collaborate with multinational organizations and governments around disease preparedness and response. An expert in policy, strategy development, and external engagement, she has been a trusted advisor to senior executives in multinational companies, NGOs, multilateral institutions, government, and academia. 

"Tina brings in such great experience leading coalitions." 

Most recently, Flores worked as an independent consultant with schools of public health and health companies to design strategies and craft multi-million-dollar initiatives to accelerate progress in health. Previously, Flores was vice president, external engagement at Rabin Martin, where she worked with C-suite, chief medical officers, and other executives from leading multinational health care companies, foundations, and academia on transformative strategies, access initiatives, and external engagement activities to influence global health policy and programs for underserved populations. In this role, she also leveraged her extensive networks to establish strategic alliances and partnerships with key stakeholders in the US and other governments, multilateral institutions, the private sector, coalitions, academia, and NGOs. Flores began her career as an intern at the Global Health Council, working her way to director, strategic communications, and the editor-in-chief for GLOBAL HEALTH Magazine.

“Tina brings in such great experience leading coalitions and maximizing the talents of both the private sector and the nonprofits,” says Crystal Lander, chief strategic engagement officer at Pathfinder International and chair of the Coalition’s Steering Committee. “I’m so excited to work with her in this new role.”

A new direction for the Frontline Health Workers Coalition

Flores joins the coalition as it coalesces around a renewed focus on primary health care and expands its work with multilateral, regional, and country stakeholders. To achieve its expanded portfolio, the coalition looks to grow its membership to include more advocates from across the global health community, as well as to reflect the broad spectrum of the health workforce. 

Flores works with a dedicated steering committee, and members to define priorities and collaborate with partners to advance progress for health workers globally. The coalition, its members, and partners are already developing plans for World Health Worker Week in April, supporting the implementation of the Africa Health Workforce Investment Charter, and a half-day event during the World Health Assembly in May.

Join us!

Organizations interested in health workforce advocacy can apply to be a member of the Frontline Health Workers Coalition. Donors can provide funding to grow the coalition’s activities or sponsor specific events. Please contact us to discuss how we can collaborate.

About the Frontline Health Workers Coalition

Launched in 2012, the Frontline Health Workers Coalition is an influential voice for change and a trusted partner for health workforce policy guidance. Hosted by IntraHealth International, the coalition advocates for key actions to address the most pressing challenges facing health workers, including staffing, inadequate pay, migration, gender inequities, inadequate supplies and water, sanitation and hygiene, and mental health issues.

The coalition has primarily focused its advocacy on the US government and the World Health Organization. Key achievements and policy wins include:

• Established World Health Worker Week, now a global advocacy movement every April that reaches millions of people
• Increased frontline health worker voices in US and global health policy discourse, including during President Biden’s Global COVID-19 Summits 
• Released advocacy reports and fact sheets, including The Case for Investing in Primary Health Care Workers
• New US government commitments across global health programs
• New US government agency reporting requirements on health workforce efforts
• The first ever WHO global strategy on health workforce (Workforce 2030)
• New health workforce strategies at the The Global Financing Facility for Women, Children and Adolescents and Global Fund
• Important health workforce provisions in the draft Pandemic Treaty as well as new UN political declarations on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response and universal health coverage.