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Jérôme Salomon: Gratitude, Resilience, and Hope as I Leave WHO’s UCN Division

Jérôme Salomon/LinkedIn

May 19, 2025, 00:54

Jérôme Salomon: Gratitude, Resilience, and Hope as I Leave WHO’s UCN Division

Jérôme Salomon, Assistant Director General of World Health Organization, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Deepest respect and immense gratitude.

My dear colleagues and friends,
DG Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has chosen a strong, cohesive and operational EXM team of respected personalities with long experience of World Health Organization.
Facing an unprecedented crisis marked by defiance of multilateralism and indifference to global health, WHO needs a cabinet of peaceful warriors, and I wish this team every success. The world is changing at a scale and pace, unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes, and we are entering a painful period for all of us

I would like to thank DG for his strong support over the last 2 years, for listening to me and for trusting me with the honor of managing UCN and representing WHO at the Boards of The Global Fund, Unitaid, UNAIDS, IARC – International Agency for Research on Cancer / World Health Organization.

After having had the pleasure of steering UCN, a respected, strong, successful, well-evaluated division with huge potential and great people, I will have to look for another useful mission for medical science, publichealth, globalhealth, humanity, solidarity between human beings, research and innovation
As I leave you, the wonderful UCN teams, I have several mixed feelings: sadness, gratitude and hope. I am sad to leave such amazing people, colleagues and great teams. WHO’s best asset is its staff members. I know you and have a lot of friends among you

I feel immense gratitude towards each one of you for your unwavering commitment to advancing global public health and embodying the values of WHO at 3 levels.

From the bottom of my heart, a huge thank you for your dedication, resilience, and the invaluable contributions you make to WHO’s mission. Every day, your dedication, expertise, and passion make a tangible difference for those in need, no matter who and where they are in the world. Together, we shaped a culture of collaboration, solidarity, equity, innovation, and shared purpose I am deeply proud and glad to have worked with you, alongside such remarkable individuals, grateful to you for all your remarkable successes and incredible achievements, testament to your commitment, hard work, creativity, efforts, and resilience
Don’t slacken your efforts, the people we serve need your expertise, skills, energy and ever more innovation

I remain optimistic and full of hope in you. We do need a more united future full of solidarity, peace, building together a healthier, safer, more equitable world, enabling research and innovation to effectively combat the main challenges and reduce inequalities for the benefit of the most vulnerable, to put an end to the discrimination and stigmatization that still cause so much harm

I do hope that in my future role I will have the pleasure of continuing to work with you We are stronger together, proud to serve the most marginalized.”