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Dr Gwendolyn T. Pang

Secretary-General

Philippine Red Cross

A well-respected humanitarian leader, Dr. Gwendolyn T. Pang is the Secretary-General of the Philippine Red Cross (PRC).

With over 25 years of experience devoted to serving the vulnerable, Dr. Pang is an inspiration to many people for her bold and yet compassionate leadership.

At a young age, she had shown remarkable dedication to the service of others by being a volunteer. Through the years, she rose through the ranks until she was already the one at the helm of PRC.

She served as Chief Operating Officer of PRC for seven years. In June 2016, she was asked to join the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) as Head of the East Asia Cluster responsible for China, Japan, South Korea and Mongolia. Quite a challenging role but not for this young, bold Filipina ready to make history. In the middle of the assignment of Dr. Pang in East Asia, she was appointed as concurrent Head of Country in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from October 2017 to March 2018.

She became an Adviser and Guest Professor at the International Academy of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies based in Suzhou, China in 2019. A year later, her role at IFRC further expanded as she became the Deputy Regional Director of the Asia Pacific of IFRC in October 2020, with 38 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies under her leadership.

After six years of coordinating humanitarian interventions in the region, Dr. Pang came home to the Philippines, particularly to PRC, where she served as a member of the Board of Governors from January 2022 to September 2022 and as Secretary-General from October 2022 to the present.

Dr. Pang developed her passion and expertise in the areas of public health, organizational development, partnership and resource development, humanitarian diplomacy, disaster management and resilience building. She is highly regarded for her execution of simple, scalable and sustainable models of organizational transformation, which was evident in PRC’s transformation into an organization that is ‘always first, always ready and always there’ in practice.

Her work with government authorities, United Nations agencies, international institutions, the private sector and academia fostered new and strengthened existing partnerships in the Philippines and Asia Pacific.

Dr. Pang has managed large, complex initiatives, which was evident during the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement-wide Typhoon Haiyan response and recovery and other major disaster and crisis operations to include the recent COVID-19 pandemic response. During the pandemic response, she supported the development of COVID-19 guidance documents to Red Cross Red Crescent national societies and in developing new services such as COVID-19 Molecular Laboratory Testing facilities, isolation centers, contact tracing, vaccination centers, and addressing socio-economic impact, etc.

Dr. Pang’s outstanding accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. She was conferred the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humanities by the Lyceum of Northwestern University of the Philippines on April 24, 2023.

In 2022, Dr Pang received two distinct awards – first, as one of the Global 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in November at an event in Lisbon, Portugal; and second, as an Asian Hero.

Closer to home, PRC honored her contributions to the organization, and her dedicated and exemplary services to humanity, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Doña Aurora Aragon Medal Award, the highest award given out by PRC, on December 15, 2021.

Six years earlier, on May 12, 2015, Dr. Pang received the Florence Nightingale Award, the highest international distinction for a professional nurse for the display of exceptional courage and dedication to victims of armed conflict or natural disasters.

Session:

21 November, Friday
14:30 - 16:00 (GMT +8)
Disaster Management & Humanitarian Response - Role of Paramedicine in Disaster Response

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