MD Charity Dean MD

Dr. Charity Dean is the CEO, Founder, and Chairman of PHC Global, a
venture-backed technology company.

In August 2020 Dr. Dean founded PHC Global, envisioning a commercial-
grade global biosecurity software platform to empower enterprises to manage bio risk at scale. Dr. Dean’s obsession with building a new solution
was born out of 24 years in public health and the recognition that
technological advancements could birth this entirely new capability of
anticipatory intelligence for biological threats. Dr. Dean previously served as
the Assistant Director for the California Department of Public Health where
she was part of the executive team under Governor Newsom running the
COVID-19 pandemic response. She co-founded and co-chaired California’s
COVID-19 Testing Task Force and under her leadership, California went from
ranking last in the nation for testing to frst in three months. In 2019, Dr.
Dean served as Acting State Public Health Ofcer and directed California’s
response to biological threats including terrorism, disease outbreaks,
natural disasters, mass evacuations, mass casualty events, and chemical
contamination, overseeing 4,300 staf with an annual operating budget of
$3.5 billion.
Before her appointment to statewide ofce, she served as the Public Health
Ofcer for Santa Barbara County and oversaw a myriad of disease
outbreaks and biological threats; she also served as an attending physician
for TB, HIV, and homeless medicine at the Santa Barbara Health Care
Centers. Dr. Dean was awarded Physician of the Year in 2018 by the Central
Coast Medical Association and honored as one of the Women of the Year by
the California State Legislature.
She is a co- author of Lessons from the COVID War. Her public health career is the focus of Michael Lewis’ book The Premonition. She has shared her insights about the danger of biological threats and the capabilities we must build before the next crisis in several interviews and podcasts.
Dr. Dean holds a Doctor of Medicine and Master of Public Health and
Tropical Medicine from Tulane University and a Bachelor of Science in
Microbiology from Oregon State University, where she delivered the 2023 Commencement Address and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Public
Health.