Aytenew Ashenafi is a health science and public health expert with over 15 years of laboratory, teaching, research and laboratory programme management experience. He currently serves as Programme Manager at Africa CDC. Before joining Africa CDC, he served as Director of Regional Laboratory Services at the International Clinical Laboratories, and as Laboratory Technical Advisor at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Ethiopia. He was a laboratory programme lead at the Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health technical support for Ethiopia HIV and AIDS project, where he provided technical leadership and managed laboratory programme operations through the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Previously, he provided quality management systems technical support for clinical research and public health laboratories in Ethiopia, Sudan and Tanzania through the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) Project. Before joining the ASLM_EDCTP project, Aytenew worked as Assistant Professor at Addis Ababa University, College of Health Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. in biomedical health sciences from Addis Ababa University and a Master’s degree in medical biochemistry from St Petersburg University, and a Master’s degree in public health from Addis Continental Public Health Institute.