San Francisco AIDS Foundation hires new executive director

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation on Tuesday announced the hiring of a new executive director, Mark Cloutier, who previously served as executive director of Continuum, a community-based HIV health care organization in San Francisco. Cloutier also will serve as president of SFAF's international affiliate, the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation. He will assume his new duties at SFAF and Pangaea on June 1. Cloutier replaces Pat Christen, who stepped down from SFAF and Pangaea last July after serving 15 years as SFAF's executive director and four years as president of Pangaea. The SFAF and Pangaea boards launched their search for an executive director-president last July, engaging in a nationwide process to identify the broadest candidate pool possible. "The HIV pandemic faces enormous and complex challenges," said Lonnie Payne, long-standing SFAF board member and chairman of the search committee, in a press statement. "Mark Cloutier has the intellect, broad background, and practical experience necessary to answer these challenges and lead the San Francisco AIDS Foundation into the future." In joining the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and Pangaea, Cloutier said in a press statement, "I am extremely proud and honored to be named executive director of one of the most respected and effective AIDS organizations in the country and president of an agency that has so quickly become a crucial player in international AIDS response. My primary goal is to ensure that these two organizations continue to provide the strong leadership, innovation, courage, and vision that is required to bring an end to HIV in this country and the world."