Winnie Byanyima

Winifred Byanyima (born 13 January 1959) is a Ugandan aeronautical engineer, politician, human rights activist and diplomat who has been executive director of UNAIDS since 2019. Born in Mbarara District, she studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Manchester, becoming the first female Ugandan aeronautical engineer, and later took a master's degree in energy conservation at Cranfield University. She joined the National Resistance Army in the Ugandan Bush War, served as Uganda's ambassador to France from 1989 to 1994, sat in the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1995 constitution, and was a member of parliament for Mbarara Municipality until 2004. She then worked at the African Union and the United Nations Development Programme before leading Oxfam International from 2013 to 2019.