King's College London

The appointment marks a significant milestone in Dr Johnson’s distinguished career at the intersection of global health practice, policy, and academia, and reinforces King’s College London’s commitment to strengthening health systems in low- and middle-income countries.

In this new role, Dr Johnson will support strategic leadership of global health education (MSc and intercalated BSc in Global Health and short courses), teaching on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes within the School of Life Course & Population Health Sciences, and lead high-quality research that addresses the delivery and evaluation of healthcare and global health. He will also direct the work of KGHP to continue to deliver impact in its long-term partnerships between King’s College London and health institutions across sub-Saharan Africa.

Oliver takes over the role of Director of KGHP from Professor Andrew Leather who is flexibly retiring and moving into a KGHP volunteer role – leading the Somaliland health partnership, where KGHP began its health systems strengthening work, 26 years ago.

Dr Johnson brings to the role a wealth of frontline experience and academic expertise that spans more than two decades of work in global health and international development.

He started his career as a Teaching Fellow in Global Health at KCL and the first Policy Director of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health in the UK Parliament. From 2013 to 2015, he was based in Freetown as the founding director of the King’s Global Health Partnership in Sierra Leone, where he played a significant role in the country’s Ebola response, setting up Ebola care units, establishing coordination structures, and advising the Sierra Leone and UK governments. He was awarded an OBE for this work and later co-authored a book on the lessons from the Ebola outbreak: 'Getting to Zero: A Doctor and a Diplomat on the Ebola Frontline'.

 

After completing his PhD, he was recruited in 2023 to be the first Managing Director for the Global Health Institute at Georgetown University in the USA, working with the university’s leadership and senior faculty on global health strategy, establishing interdisciplinary research collaboratives, and running a global health student fellows programme.

Dr Johnson continues as a Senior Fellow at the Georgetown University Global Health Institute in Washington DC and Visiting Researcher at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He currently serves as a commissioner on both the Georgetown-Lancet Commission on Faith, Trust, and Health and the Lancet Commission on Health Systems Performance Assessment.