Cherinet Demissie is a public health specialist, senior expert pharmacist, procurement and supply chain professional with over 17 years of experience in the Ethiopian pharmaceuticals supply chain. Mr. Demissie’s main areas of expertise include health system strengthening, pharmaceuticals quantification and market shaping, procurement, contract management, strategic planning and document development, business process improvement, sales and operations management, supply chain management, supply chain integration, capacity building, system design and evaluation, operational research, warehousing, inventory management and distribution in both public and private systems.
Mr. Demissie is a senior program officer in the market shaping practice at Results for Development (R4D) where he provides technical support to the Ethiopia Pharmaceutical Supply Service (EPSS) to support its Quantification and Market Shaping Directorate (QMSD) to play a lead market management role. Mr. Demissie supports the co-development and co-implementation of market shortcoming assessment frameworks, catalytic capacity building approaches and the implementation of strategic market shaping interventions for the pharmaceuticals supply chain in Ethiopia.
Mr. Demissie spent four years working as a senior supply chain advisor for inbound logistics at EPSS where he developed a procurement framework which allowed EPSS to reduce long procurement lead times and ultimately contributed to the availability of vital and essential pharmaceuticals in public health facilities. He also led a national initiative launched by Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health and EPSS to equip the public hospital in Ethiopia with laboratory equipment – mainly hematology and chemistry analyzers. This initiative has improved access to and the quality of Ethiopian medical laboratory services.
Before joining R4D, Mr. Demissie was a senior supply chain advisor for inbound logistics at EPSS where he oversaw the overall pharmaceuticals supply chain operations of EPSS and played an advisory role on strategic issues including pharmaceuticals supply chain system strengthening, development of market shaping strategy, implementation of strategic market shaping interventions, sourcing strategy, framework agreement, Electronic Government Procurement (eGP), stakeholders management, strategic procurement, supplier performance evaluation and supplier prequalification. Mr. Demissie also worked in pharmaceutical import as a technical manager, business developer and deputy general manager in private health care setup. Prior to these roles, Mr. Demissie worked as pharmaceutical procurement coordinator, senior pharmaceuticals procurement officer, and storage and distribution officer at EPSS and as a junior pharmacist at Ethiopia’s Federal Ministry of Health.
Mr. Demissie is an active member of the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Association (EPA). He holds a master’s degree in public health (MPH) from Hawassa University, a master’s of art in logistics and supply chain management (MA in LSCM) from Addis Ababa University, a bachelor of pharmacy degree (BPharm) from Jimma University and a BA degree in procurement and supplies management from Alpha University College. He is a native speaker of Amharic and Afan Oromo and also speaks English.
