Paul Callan

Paul Callan is a Partner and Co-Founder at Axum. He advises leaders of global and regional organizations on strategic planning, organizational reform and developing new initiatives. Paul is a key contributor to reforming and strengthening United Nations development, humanitarian, peace & security, and human rights agencies. He advises the World Bank Group and regional development banks on strategy, decentralization and process simplification. He works with national governments, donor agencies, foundations and leading NGOs on development assistance strategies and on creating impactful initiatives in sectors such as global health, green economic development, and technology in schools.

Paul writes regularly to provide research-driven perspectives on global development issues. He produced reliable views of COVID-19 epidemics in low- and middle-income countries and the earliest reliable estimate of global COVID-19 mortality during the pandemic, analyzed the sources of financing for countries at risk of debt distress, quantified the role of private capital in blended finance, and created a rigorous assessment of the effectiveness of Millennium Development Goals and implications for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Before co-founding Axum, Paul was the longest-serving Partner and former Global Operating Partner at Dalberg Advisors, and previously worked with McKinsey & Company. Paul holds a PhD in physics from Harvard University and a BA in theoretical physics from Trinity College Dublin.