Dr. Jemilah Mahmood is the chief of the World Humanitarian Summit secretariat. For her work in humanitarian response and peace building she has been conferred numerous national and international awards, and has been a member of several humanitarian international boards. She is a medical physician and the founder of MERCY Malaysia. Mahmood was the co-founder of the Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network in 2004, and the Chief of Humanitarian Response at UNFPA in New York from 2009-2011.