A national of Senegal, Mr. Elhadj As Sy formerly served as Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) from 2014 to 2019. He is currently the Chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation Board and Governor of Wellcome Trust.  Mr. Elhadj As Sy is also a member of the Governing Boards of Interpeace, The Power of Nutrition and Lego Foundation.

Mr. Sy has a distinguished career, spanning over 35 years of international experience in high level leadership roles in the humanitarian sector. He previously served in various senior roles in UNICEF, UNDP, UNAIDS, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He has held multiple advisory roles, key among which are in the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme. In 2016 Mr. Sy was appointed by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the High-level Advisory Group for Every Woman Every Child and later to the Global Health Crises Task Force, in response to the West African Ebola epidemic in 2016. From 2018 to 2022, he co-chaired the joint World Bank/WHO Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB).

H.E. Mr. Elhadj As Sy was educated at the University of Dakar, University of Graz, the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna and L’ Ecole normale supérieure in Dakar. He is fluent in English, French and German.