Dr Michaela Mantel is a health expert working in low- and middle-income countries for more than 35 years. Her early clinical experiences include internal medicine, anaesthesia, obstetrics and gynaecology in Germany and Tanzania. In 1992, she achieved her Master Degree at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA, and worked as freelance expert with governments and development partners in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe from 1993 to 2006. Her focus is on population health; public health and health system strengthening; health policy development; and public-private partnership in health development and community health, especially in sexual and reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health. Programme scoping and feasibility studies, monitoring, evaluation, research and learning are central throughout her public health career. From 2006 to 2012, Dr Mantel worked as health programme officer at the Aga Khan Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland and from 2013 to 2021, she was employed by the Aga Khan University as faculty member in Nairobi, Kenya, responsible for project implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and research. Since 2021, Dr Mantel is the Founding and Managing Director of the global consultant agency ‘The Health Associates Ltd’ based in Germany and Kenya.