Kate Segal doesn’t remember the exact moment she stopped thinking of leadership as something loud and commanding. But she knows where the shift started. During her year as a Global Health Corps fellow in 2017-2018, she realized that her quiet strength, the way she built relationships and earned trust, was its own form of leadership.
That understanding has carried her through every chapter since. As Senior Program Manager for Product Introduction and Access at AVAC, Kate works to get HIV prevention tools into the hands of people who need them most. It’s work that lives at the intersection of science, policy, and community, where technical expertise matters but so does the ability to navigate political landscapes, broker partnerships across continents, and keep showing up when progress feels impossible.
When Natasha Mwila joined her team as Program Coordinator, Kate saw something she recognized—curiosity, potential, and a willingness to learn. She also saw a chance to do what her own mentors had done for her. She encouraged Natasha to apply to the Africa Leadership Accelerator (ALA), knowing the program could unlock growth she didn’t yet know she needed.
“GHC propelled my career forward,” Kate says. “It gave me the tools, frameworks, and confidence to grow into a more self-aware and adaptable leader. I wanted Natasha to have that same opportunity.”
The ALA has reframed everything for Natasha. She’s learning to give and receive feedback in ways that strengthen rather than strain relationships. She’s developing the skills to manage up, to lead teams with empathy, to create space for others to grow. “I used to think leadership was about position,” she says. “Now I see it as helping others discover their strengths and role in creating change.”
She’s already putting that into practice. Natasha leads an advisory group of young HIV prevention advocates, passing along what she’s learning in real time—how to navigate organizational dynamics, how to influence without formal authority, how to stay grounded when things get difficult.
Their partnership has held through funding cuts, stop-work orders, and the kind of political turbulence that can gut global health programs overnight. The disruptions that make it nearly impossible to plan, to promise communities consistency, to build the trust that HIV prevention work requires. They show up for each other with honesty. They communicate openly when things feel uncertain. They lean on the foundation they’ve built together to keep their work moving forward, even when the ground beneath them shifts.
“I really trust Tasha to execute,” Kate says. “That trust has been a steadying force through challenging times.”
This is why leadership development and HIV prevention are inseparable. You can’t sustain the long fight against AIDS without leaders who can adapt when strategies fail, who can build the relationships that hold coalitions together, who can mentor the next generation even while navigating their own challenges. You can’t deliver prevention tools equitably without leaders who understand that their power comes from lifting others up.
The work continues, across borders and through setbacks, because of leaders like Kate and Natasha who prove that ending this epidemic requires both scientific innovation and something harder to measure: the multiplication of leadership across generations and crises. Their partnership shows us that investing in emerging leaders isn’t separate from the fight against AIDS. It is the fight.