Rachel Wood’s career has focused on international development and global health policy, with experience in innovation, market-based strategies, private sector partnerships, multilateral negotiations, and health diplomacy. Prior to GHV, Rachel served as Acting Director of USAID’s Center for Innovation and Impact within the Global Health Bureau, where she oversaw a team of experts working on health innovations, market access initiatives, digital health tools, and innovative financing. Before that, she was the Acting Deputy Director and a Senior Innovation Advisor at CII and managed USAID contracts focused on maternal and child health, assessing and improving supply chain challenges, and streamlining pathways to launch and scale for innovations. 

Previously, Rachel worked as a Senior Global Health Officer for Multilateral Relations in the Office of Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she started as a Presidential Management Fellow. In this role, she liaised with the World Health Organization and other UN institutions and represented U.S. Government global health positions in multilateral negotiations. During her time as a federal employee, she served on details to the maternal and child health team at USAID, in Guinea as part of CDC’s response to the Ebola outbreak in 2015, and oversaw the FY2020global health budgets for USAID and the U.S. Department of State at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. 

Rachel graduated from the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle and received a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.