Global Fund Appoints New Inspector General

Author:

Bernard Rivers

Article Number: 1

Martin O’Malley Will Assume the Post Around September

ABSTRACT The Global Fund Board has appointed Martin O’Malley to head its Office of the Inspector General. For the past three years, Mr O’Malley has worked as Chief Audit Officer of the South Africa–based Standard Bank Group.

The Global Fund Board has appointed Martin O’Malley to serve as its next Inspector General, a position that requires him to lead the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The appointment was necessary after the previous Inspector General had his appointment terminated by the Board in November 2012.

Mr O’Malley, 42, is a British auditor who has worked for the past three years as Chief Audit Officer of the South Africa–based Standard Bank Group, where he leads a team of 250 staff. The Standard Bank Group is the largest African banking group, with more than $185 billion in assets and 52,000 employees. Over the years Mr O’Malley has led audits in 17 African countries.

Mr O’Malley has been appointed by the Global Fund to a non-renewable six-year term that starts in September 2013. He will replace Norbert Hauser, who has served as interim Inspector General since December 2012.

The Global Fund Board set up a seven-person Ad Hoc Nominations Committee to lead an extensive search for the new Inspector General. The committee was chaired by Aida Kurtovic and vice-chaired by Jan Paehler. Each committee member served in an independent capacity rather than on behalf of any employer or country.

One hundred and four people responded to advertisements for the job; of these, 93% were male and 72% were from donor countries. A search firm then approached a further 230 people, of whom 79% were male and 59% were from donor countries.

From all these people, the committee created a “long list” of 19 strong candidates, of whom 84% were male and 56% were from donor countries. Fifteen of the 19 came from the search firm contacts and four from the advertising campaign. The committee then narrowed these down to a short-list of six people – four men and two women, with three from donor countries and three from implementer (developing) countries.

The six people on the short-list were interviewed by the committee, which then agreed unanimously on three of the six who would be invited back for a second interview. These three were all from donor countries.

The committee said in its report to the Board that pursuant to Board instructions, it had had “an unwavering focus on merit…, with other diversity factors remaining important but not priority considerations.” The committee added that “without compromising merit, gender and language preferences were also given material weight.” Nationality was given no positive or negative weight.

After the second round of interviews, the committee agreed unanimously that Mr O’Malley was “outstanding” and was its first choice, and that a woman (regarding whom full details were provided to the Board) was its second choice. The Board then discussed the situation in Executive Session (for which only Board members and their alternates were present) and chose Mr O’Malley for the job.

This article is based on a Global Fund news release; on Board Document GF-B29-13, Recommendations of the 2013 Inspector General Ad Hoc Nominations Committee, which should be posted shortly on the Global Fund website at www.theglobalfund.org/en/board/meetings/twentyninth; and on a presentation made on 19 June 2013 to the Board by the Ad Hoc Nominations Committee.