Mark Chataway

Mark Chataway is one of the founders of Baird’s Communications Management Consultants, and has been involved in developing the Baird’s CMC proprietary systems for analysing communications risks and opportunities and for effective stakeholder relations. He is the director of Hyderus Ltd and directs the company’s consulting business.

Chataway has worked in India since the late 1980s. His initial involvement was through clients of Hill & Knowlton, a public relations company. In 1993, he began work for the Rockefeller Foundation on reproductive health and family planning issues with a strong focus on the sub-continent. He then lead several projects for the Partners in Population and Development (which has its headquarters in Dhaka), including an initiative to inform senior journalists in South Asian media. He set up the India office of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and worked closely with government at all levels to define India’s policies on prevention of HIV infection. He has worked for numerous other clients on major Indian projects including the International Scientific Forum on Family Hygiene, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Shell Foundation, the Safe Motherhood Initiative, Women Deliver.

Chataway has been involved in reproductive and sexual health since 1983 when he became communications director of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York. He worked full-time for the organisation for two years and later as a volunteer. He served on the board of the largest AIDS fundraising charity in Europe, Crusaid, during the 1990s and continues on the organisation’s Council. He is a member of the Board of Ambassadors of the (UK) National Aids Trust and the Board of Trustees of the (US) National AIDS Fund. Having worked with the International Council of AIDS Service Organisations for many years, he chaired the ICASO / Alliance session at the 2004 International AIDS Conference in Bangkok and facilitated the meeting on NGO input into the final leadership statement of the conference. He has been involved in various capacities in Positive Action (the community involvement programme of Glaxo SmithKline) since its start 15 years ago. With funding from the Hewlett Foundation, he led a team whiuch set up a personalised news service for journalists with a commitment to covering population and sexual health. He has worked with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative since before its formal founding and is currently a consultant to the Country and Regional Programmes and the Communications Departments of IAVI. In 2004, he led a panel invited to evaluate community preparedness for phase III vaccine trials in Thailand by the Royal Thai Ministry of Public Health and the US Army Medical research and Materiel Command. In 2005, he moderated a meeting of senior preventative medicine personnel from all US armed services on the likely uses of an AIDS vaccine. In 2007, he was a member of the South African Department of Science and Technology review panel on the South African Aids Vaccine Initiative and wrote much of the official recommendations produced by the panel.

Chataway has recently completed a number of large policy research projects for organisations including the pneumococcal vaccine ADIP at Johns Hopkins University and the rotavirus ADIP at PATH; the GAVI Vaccine Fund; Glaxo SmithKline; Merck, Sharp & Dohme and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All involved interviewing (or analysing interviews with) senior policymakers in developing countries on likely future health priorities and policies.

He is a long-standing consultant on communication issues to NGOs such as the Hewlett Foundation, the Guttmacher Institute and WorldVision. Over the past decade, he has been involved in specific projects for many international NGOs including the International Osteoporosis Foundation (new ways of empowering people with osteoporosis); the European AIDS Treatment Group (improving skills of activists in Southern Europe), the European Society of Cardiology (measuring and improving public awareness of heart failure) and the Jordan River Foundation.

As head of the health, environment and crisis management practice at Hill & Knowlton Europe from 1987 to 1993, Chataway led a three-year project for the Government of Botswana focusing on the country’s environmental accomplishments and needs and how to communicate these.

Chataway started his working life as a broadcast journalist in the United States and working for British media in North America. He was programme director of a CBS-affiliated news and talk radio station in Atlanta and executive producer of a New York talk station. He was a correspondent for the BBC, Independent Radio News (UK), Channel 702 (South Africa) and the Papua New Guinea Broadcasting Corporation (amongst others).

For reasons too odd for a curriculum vitae, Chataway’s undergraduate degree is from Troy State University in Troy, Alabama. He did graduate work in psychology at New York University and in theology through the University of Alberta. Mark speaks French and Welsh well enough to work in either. He speaks good Portuguese and a little Dutch and Hebrew. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists; the Unite! Trade Union; the Royal Over-Seas League; the Royal Commonwealth Society and; the Frontline Club.

Chris Nial

Chris Nial is a certified PMI project manager (a globally recognized project management methodology) with over 15 years project management experience across regional and cultural divides. He manages the project management staff at Hyderus and Baird’s Communications Management Consultants in three continents. He has been managing communications and market research projects for Baird’s CMC for clients including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Merck & Co., Inc., Abbott and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health since 2004. Chris has managed a number of healthcare projects in areas such as HIV/AIDS, childhood vaccines, asthma, cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, obesity and growth hormone disease. He managed these projects for major pharmaceutical clients, not-for-profit organisations and governments throughout Europe, Africa, India and the US.

In 1994 and the early days of the Internet, as a project manager he was instrumental in the introduction of pioneering technologies such as video streaming and online communities. During this time, he worked for a number of high-profile organisations such as AstraZeneca, MSD, Roche and City Index along with non-governmental organisations including The World Bank, the Health Education Authority and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Like many PMI project managers, Chris began his career in IT at as a programmer/analyst for NatWest Bank. Following a year in Cyprus with a card payment solution provider, he worked for PolyGram records and then Bloomberg where he oversaw the implementation of WAN’s and enterprise networks throughout Europe.

Chris is a full member of the British Computer Society (MBCS), maintains the certified associate credential with PMI (CAPM) and is currently studying for an MBA in life sciences with the Open University.