Ann Starrs joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the Director of Family Planning in July 2019. In this capacity, she leads the Family Planning team’s overall strategy and coordinates with other global strategies within the foundation and with external partners to achieve greater access to voluntary family planning. Before joining the foundation, she served as the President and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute; during that time, she co-chaired the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.
Prior to joining Guttmacher, Ann was President of Family Care International, which she helped found in 1986. She was on the Board of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health from 2005-2018, serving as co-chair from 2005–2011; was part of the Developed Country NGO Delegation to the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Ann holds a master’s degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a certificate in demography from Princeton’s Office of Population Research; she received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz.