--- title: Aurélia Nguyen Is on the TIME100 Next 2021 List description: Find out how Aurélia Nguyen is shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership. canonical: https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937629/aurelia-nguyen/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-02-16T23:41:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-02T23:47:48.134Z og:title: 2021 TIME100 Next: Aurélia Nguyen og:description: Find out why Aurélia Nguyen is on this year’s TIME100 Next list og:url: https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937629/aurelia-nguyen/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdfb10706beea90b5/698a173ce76ad24874638a13/time100-next-aurelia-nguyen.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 2021 TIME100 Next: Aurélia Nguyen og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 2021 TIME100 Next: Aurélia Nguyen twitter:description: Find out why Aurélia Nguyen is on this year’s TIME100 Next list twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdfb10706beea90b5/698a173ce76ad24874638a13/time100-next-aurelia-nguyen.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Feb 16, 2021 # Aurélia Nguyen by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff  Tony Noel—Gavi It’s not an exaggeration to say that the health of the world lies in the hands of Aurélia Nguyen. It’s Nguyen’s job, as managing director of the COVAX Facility, to ensure that the lifesaving and pandemic-ending vaccines developed against COVID-19 reach as many people around the world as possible. Public-health officials say that in today’s connected world, an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere. So only by vaccinating nearly everyone on the planet can we erect a human wall of immunity that’s harder for the virus to penetrate. Nguyen oversees $6 billion in pledges from 98 wealthier countries to support COVAX, a joint endeavor of the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Since November 2020, she’s led the facility’s mission to secure and distribute vaccines without charge to nearly 92 lower-resource nations that because of their smaller health care budgets would otherwise be shut out of orders for the shots. COVAX is competing with wealthier nations that are securing doses for themselves, and Nguyen admits that it’s “not going to be all smooth sailing.” But in 2021, she anticipates COVAX will distribute 2 billion doses to countries including India, Brazil and Nigeria. _—Alice Park_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937629/aurelia-nguyen/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937629/aurelia-nguyen/"},"headline":"Aurélia Nguyen","datePublished":"2021-02-16T23:41:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:47:48.134Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937629/aurelia-nguyen/","keywords":["list","franchise","TIME 100 Next","TIME 100 Next Advocates"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdfb10706beea90b5/698a173ce76ad24874638a13/time100-next-aurelia-nguyen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdfb10706beea90b5/698a173ce76ad24874638a13/time100-next-aurelia-nguyen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937629/aurelia-nguyen/","name":"Aurélia Nguyen"}}]}] ```