Max Seunik

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER | max@youngdiplomats.ca

Max is a public health scientist and public policy wonk passionate about health and human rights, development policy, and Canada’s role in the world. Below the 49th parallel, Max studied Health Policy and Management and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain Scholar. In July 2017, he graduated with Masters of Management in Global Affairs as part of the inaugural cohort of Schwarzman Scholars at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

He has been featured in the Globe and Mail and TEDx, spoken at and attended conferences around the world, and presented original research at the United Nations. Fluent in several languages, he has previously advised both governments and the private sector on cultural integration and development policy including a stint where he advised and managed the research portfolio of Dr. Agnès Binagwaho, the former Rwandan Minister of Health. Max lives and works in Uganda where he leads national field-based studies on increasing accessibility to and improving local governments with Yale-based Innovations for Poverty Action. He helped found a new Global Shapers Hub of the World Economic Forum in Raleigh, North Carolina and has worked with civil society actors from Angola to Brazil to Canada’s Arctic – most notably as a member of CIVICUS’ Youth Action Team (YAT), the world’s largest umbrella organization of civil society organizations. 

In July 2014, Max had the privilege of leading YDC’s Y20 delegation to Australia as head delegate and negotiating the communiqué that was presented to G20 leaders. As Deputy Executive Director, Max is responsible for YDC operations and driving forward the organization’s vision both at home and abroad.