PSI has appointed Dr. Steven Chapman as its chief technical officer, announced PSI President and CEO Karl Hofmann. Chapman is one of the pioneers of PSI’s social marketing approach, starting with the non-profit organization in 1989 when it had programs in only five countries and worked only in family planning and HIV.
“Steve’s record at PSI over 14 of the past 19 years as an innovator and experimental thinker makes him uniquely qualified to take the CTO role to its rightful place as a driver of innovation, champion of technical excellence and guardian of quality in our programs,” said Hofmann. “Steve brings to this position more than 24 years of experience in development, almost all of which has included marketing. Steve’s leading, teaching and mentoring have made him among the most influential people within PSI, and more broadly in our field.”
Dr. Chapman looks forward to his new role at PSI. “We seek to improve the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and equity of our programs and believe that piloting, diffusing and growing new interventions from artemisinin-based combination therapies to zinc, and new ways of working are central to that,” he said.
After two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, Chapman came to PSI where, from 1989-1997, he helped conceive of many of the structures and policies that governed PSI’s growth, launched HIV, reproductive health and child survival programs across Africa and founded PSI/Europe.
He left PSI in 1997 to work for Marie Stopes International in London as director of Asia programs. From 2000-2002, he worked as senior scientist at the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (NTO) Prevention and Health. He returned to PSI in 2002 as research director and was promoted to vice president in 2005.
Chapman has a BA in economics from the University of Washington, a law degree from George Washington University and a PhD in population dynamics from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is an adjunct professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and speaks Dutch and French.