Francois Venter is deputy executive director at Wits RHI and a lecturer in the Department of Medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also an honorary consultant at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital. He is a previous president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, which has more than 3,000 members in the region.

Venter has expertise in programmatic HIV implementation, especially in the provision of antiretroviral therapy, opportunistic infection prophylaxis, human resource allocation, data systems, and service integration. He has extensive training experience in these areas and an interest in monitoring and evaluation of clinical interventions, as well as a human rights interest in access to quality care. Venter has published several operational research studies and is currently principal investigator on several large antiretroviral dose reduction studies. He has been part of and continues to participate in several important South African and regional policy-making fora.

He is an active participant on numerous guidelines, policy, and conference committees. He has been a member of the Annual Interest Workshop’s Organizing Committee since 2010, and is co-convenor of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society Guidelines for ART delivery among migrants and crises-affected persons. He has been a member of the PLOS One Human Research Advisory Group since 2014 and served on several scientific and safety advisory boards for clinical studies, as well as on World Health Organization clinical guidelines committees.

Venter is an examiner and committee member for the Diploma in HIV Medicine and an examiner for the Diploma in Sexual Health and HIV for both Colleges of Medicine. He also sits on the UNAIDS Regional Treatment Forum for East and Southern Africa (ESA). He contributes regularly to discussions and papers about human rights and medical ethics. Venter was the chairperson of the fifth South African AIDS Conference in 2011 and chaired the second Southern African HIV Clinicians Society Conference in 2014. He was named “one of the top influential leaders at the national level” by the South African Institute of Health Care Managers in 2008, and received the First Merle A. Sande Health Leadership Award in 2010 and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) Lifetime Health Care Professional Award in 2010.