Business Fights AIDS
A behind the scenes look at building the business response to AIDS.
All Episodes
Business Fights AIDS Ep02: Macrame
In the second episode of the Business Fights AIDS Podcast, Ben navigates his diaries from the last few months of 2001, coming immediately in the wake of September 11th, as Holbrooke and Ben tried desperately to enthuse companies around the world to join them in fighting AIDS. It was hard, unrelenting work – like everyone else, the business community had other things on their mind. But Holbrooke, Ben and the global team they were putting together weren’t giving up. This was AIDS. The first global pandemic of the 21st century.
Brought to you by the team behind A Shot In The Arm Podcast and the Vax Up Podcast. Written and narrated by Ben Plumley. Directed by Erik Espera, of News Doc Media. Digital Production by Troy Espera. Produced in association with Latobyve Resources. The Business Fights AIDS Podcast is a project of the Ikana Health Action Lab.
https://www.businessfightsaidspodcast.orghttps://www.ashotinthearmpodcast.comhttps://latobyveresources-pozie.business.site/https://www.ikanahealth.comhttps://www.gbchealth.orghttps://www.unaids.orghttps://www.theglobalfund.org
February 7, 2022
Business Fights AIDS Ep03: Breakfast
In episode 3 of Ben Plumley’s most excellent adventure with the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to marshal an extraordinary movement of businesses to fight AIDS, Ben faces Holbrooke down on his controversial view that compulsory HIV testing was the key to ending the AIDS epidemic. Ben also faces a few ghosts of his own, from his direct experience of HIV testing, a decade previously in 1990s London.
Brought to you by the team behind A Shot In The Arm Podcast and the Vax Up Podcast. Written and narrated by Ben Plumley. Directed by Erik Espera, of News Doc Media. Digital Production by Troy Espera. Produced in association with Latobyve Resources. The Business Fights AIDS Podcast is a project of the Ikana Health Action Lab.
https://www.businessfightsaidspodcast.orghttps://www.ashotinthearmpodcast.comhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2010/12/15/remembering-richard-holbrooke/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801228.htmlhttps://latobyveresources-pozie.business.site/https://www.ikanahealth.comhttps://www.gbchealth.orghttps://www.unaids.orghttps://www.theglobalfund.org
February 7, 2022
Business Fights AIDS Ep01: September 2001
In September 2001, Ben Plumley joined Ambassador Richard Holbrooke on an unlikely adventure to marshal an extraordinary movement of businesses to fight AIDS, the 21st century’s first global pandemic. Reading from his 2001 diaries, Ben tells the often-forgotten story of the founding of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS. By treating its HIV positive employees and dependents, and marketing innovative HIV prevention messages, could the business community buy governments and UN just enough time to create the multi-billion-dollar programs that could give us a chance to beat AIDS in our lifetimes?
This episode covers the events at a special UN General Assembly Session devoted to AIDS, leading up to his first day on the job of Executive Director of the Global Business Coalition on HIV & AIDS was September the 11th 2001. A terrible, horrific co-incidence – with profound consequences for global security, including pandemics preparation.
In 2002, the world was just beginning to realize the extent of global threat posed by the AIDS epidemic. Could the lessons from twenty years ago, help us in 2022, two years into the global COVID pandemic?
Brought to you by the team behind A Shot In The Arm Podcast and the Vax Up Podcast. Written and narrated by Ben Plumley. Directed by Erik Espera, of News Doc Media. Digital Production by Troy Espera. Produced in association with Latobyve Resources. The Business Fights AIDS Podcast is a project of the Ikana Health Action Lab.
https://www.businessfightsaidspodcast.orghttps://www.ashotinthearmpodcast.comhttps://latobyveresources-pozie.business.site/https://ikanahealth.comhttps://www.gbchealth.orghttps://www.unaids.orghttps://www.theglobalfund.org
February 7, 2022
About Business Fights AIDS
Twenty years ago, the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and I (Ben Plumley) — a then a young United Nations official — joined forces to persuade companies around the world to step up and respond to the global AIDS epidemic.
The Business Fights AIDS Podcast tells that story through the diaries I wrote at the time. It's an uncharacteristically unfiltered behind-the-scenes look at how we cajoled, brow-beat, and charmed companies from all sorts of industrial sectors—mining, soft drinks, media, and pharmaceuticals—to provide HIV treatment and prevention in the workplace and fight stigma and discrimination. And maybe there are some lessons learned for 2022, as we enter the third year of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Hope you enjoy the podcast, are informed and maybe even chuckle a bit.
The Business Fights AIDS Podcast tells that story through the diaries I wrote at the time. It's an uncharacteristically unfiltered behind-the-scenes look at how we cajoled, brow-beat, and charmed companies from all sorts of industrial sectors—mining, soft drinks, media, and pharmaceuticals—to provide HIV treatment and prevention in the workplace and fight stigma and discrimination. And maybe there are some lessons learned for 2022, as we enter the third year of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Hope you enjoy the podcast, are informed and maybe even chuckle a bit.
Host
Ben Plumley, Global Health Strategist
Ben is an internationally recognized global health strategist and advocate, with over 25 years’ experience in the UN, private and non-profit sectors. Now based in California, Ben’s unique strength is in mobilizing stakeholders to create impactful public private partnerships in global health.
Ben is Head of Engagement, Partnerships and Impact at Ikana Health Action Lab, and a Senior Fellow at the Global Health Reporting Center.
Ben is an internationally respected podcaster, and host of A Shot In The Arm Podcast, a cutting-edge video podcast about innovation and equity in global health – particularly in the age of pandemics. Guests have included Dr Anthony Fauci, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Professor Heidi Larson. Ben’s other podcasts include Business Fights AIDS, a behind the scenes look at his collaboration with the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to mobilize the business response to AIDS, and Vax Up – a video podcast designed for vaccine implementers on how social technologies can be used to promote vaccine confidence.
Between 2010 and 2018, he was the CEO of the Global Health Technical Assistance and Policy Think Tank, the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation. As well as non-profits, he has extensive public and private sector experience, having been Vice President of Access at Johnson & Johnson, Chief of Staff to Dr Peter Piot, the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS, and a public consultation policy adviser at the UK Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority.
Ben is Chair of the MTV Staying Alive Foundation, producer of the award-winning MTV Shuga terrestrial and digital soap operas, promoting young people’s sexual and reproductive health across Southern Africa and India.
He is also the incoming Chair of the San Francisco Community Health Center, a national center of excellence which provides ground-breaking comprehensive health and wellness services for hard-to-reach homeless, trans and drug-using communities in San Francisco’s tenderloin district. Ben was educated at Churchill College, Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.
Ben's other interests include the literature (and particularly the essays) of Aldous Huxley (perhaps the greatest essayist of the 20th century), as well as the genre of speculative fiction - particularly Margaret Atwood (definitely the best English-language writer of our era). And, to the alarm of many of his friends, he is passionate about British, German and Japanese electronic pop music, particularly the Pet Shop Boys, Rosenstolz and Kirinji.
Ben is Head of Engagement, Partnerships and Impact at Ikana Health Action Lab, and a Senior Fellow at the Global Health Reporting Center.
Ben is an internationally respected podcaster, and host of A Shot In The Arm Podcast, a cutting-edge video podcast about innovation and equity in global health – particularly in the age of pandemics. Guests have included Dr Anthony Fauci, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Professor Heidi Larson. Ben’s other podcasts include Business Fights AIDS, a behind the scenes look at his collaboration with the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to mobilize the business response to AIDS, and Vax Up – a video podcast designed for vaccine implementers on how social technologies can be used to promote vaccine confidence.
Between 2010 and 2018, he was the CEO of the Global Health Technical Assistance and Policy Think Tank, the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation. As well as non-profits, he has extensive public and private sector experience, having been Vice President of Access at Johnson & Johnson, Chief of Staff to Dr Peter Piot, the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS, and a public consultation policy adviser at the UK Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority.
Ben is Chair of the MTV Staying Alive Foundation, producer of the award-winning MTV Shuga terrestrial and digital soap operas, promoting young people’s sexual and reproductive health across Southern Africa and India.
He is also the incoming Chair of the San Francisco Community Health Center, a national center of excellence which provides ground-breaking comprehensive health and wellness services for hard-to-reach homeless, trans and drug-using communities in San Francisco’s tenderloin district. Ben was educated at Churchill College, Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.
Ben's other interests include the literature (and particularly the essays) of Aldous Huxley (perhaps the greatest essayist of the 20th century), as well as the genre of speculative fiction - particularly Margaret Atwood (definitely the best English-language writer of our era). And, to the alarm of many of his friends, he is passionate about British, German and Japanese electronic pop music, particularly the Pet Shop Boys, Rosenstolz and Kirinji.
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