Q&A with CHIBE’s new managing director Wendy Voet

This summer CHIBE welcomed Wendy Voet, MPH, as our new managing director.

Voet is a nonprofit and public health leader with more than two decades of experience driving program innovation, strategic growth, and organizational leadership across global and domestic settings.

Most recently, Voet served as Principal Program Advisor for New Program Development at Jhpiego Corporation, a Johns Hopkins affiliate, where she led grant writing and program design for high-impact, health system focused proposal teams. Within that role, she helped secure more than $250 million in funding from leading global health donors.

Read our Q&A to learn more about Voet.

What made you interested in the managing director position, and what are you most excited to work on in this role?

The CHIBE managing director role brings together so many things I love. First, I love Penn. My father was a chemistry professor at Penn, so I grew up coming to campus. I was then an undergraduate at Penn and studied psychology. Years later, I also worked as the managing director for the Penn Center for Public Health for several years. I was super excited at the prospect of coming back to the institution that has given me so much.

Second, the behavioral economics-focused work that CHIBE does and the impact it has really resonated with me, especially in light of my background in public health.

Finally, the managing director role itself fit in with many of my key professional strengths: partnership building, program development and oversight, and fundraising. 

Currently, projects I work on that I find exciting include standing up a partnership with the National University of Singapore, helping to oversee multiple projects focused on Food Is Medicine, and initiating an AI taskforce.  

What’s your work superpower?

My greatest strength lies in relationship building and partnership development. I have lived and worked in the Philadelphia area for many, many years and maintain a wide network of nonprofit and corporate colleagues in the field of public health. I love bringing people together to accelerate new thinking and start up new initiatives.

What did you learn from your Peace Corp experience, and what was life like in Niger?

I learned so much in the Peace Corps. I learned that people around the world might come from different cultures, but most of us want the same things (the means to live with dignity, opportunities for our children, a healthy community, and quality health care). 

I also learned to be grateful for everything I have and take nothing for granted. Mostly I learned that the people in Niger are some of the most intellectual, kind, hardworking, and giving people one could ever meet.  

What other adventures abroad have you had?

I have spent half of my career in global health, so I have had many opportunities to travel. I was inspired to go into global health after I spent a semester in India while I was in college. While there I studied knitting with Tibetan refugees in Darjeeling, I worked for a month at Mother Teresa’s home for the destitute and dying in Calcutta and I also studied Batik at a women’s collective in Bangladesh. 

Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to have so many other adventures as well—I visited the gorillas in Rwanda; went on safari in South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania; visited the Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar; and went to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.  

Anything else you think would be fun for people to know?

I have two daughters and two dogs (pugs named Wallace and Gromit).

I love to travel and eat. Some of my favorite countries I have visited for vacation include Peru, Laos,  Japan, and Iceland. My favorite restaurants in Philadelphia are Kalaya, Middle Child Clubhouse, Uncle Gus’ Steaks, and Sao.