Bill Kean, executive director of the director-general’s office at the World Health Organization, was expected to retire at the end of March. Kean, who regularly played a role in WHO meetings related to intellectual property rights and innovation, took the post in 2006 after two decades at WHO. Anne Marie Worning, the current director of planning, resource coordination and performance monitoring, was asked to take his place from 30 March.

Tshihumbudzo Ravhandalala joined the South African mission in late January as the new second secretary, where she will be covering activities at the World Intellectual Property Organization, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the International Telecommunication Union and the World Meteorological Organization. She previously served at the Department of Foreign Affairs in South Africa.

Top officials have been named at the new Office of the United States Trade Representative. Juliana Smoot is the new chief of staff; her former postings include co-chair for the Presidential Inaugural Committee and national finance director at both the Obama for America campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Peter Cowhey, former chief of the International Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission, is senior counsellor. He is currently on leave from the University of California, San Diego, where he is a professor and dean of the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

The USTR’s new general counsel is Timothy Reif, who comes from the US House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, where he served as the chief Democratic international trade counsel. Lisa A. Garcia, who was principal of her own consulting firm and who served in the office of Senator John Kerry (Democrat, Massachusetts), is the assistant USTR for the Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison office. New deputy assistant USTR for the same office is Myesha Ward, the former Midwest regional political director and deputy director for delegate operations for the Obama campaign.

Daniel Sepulveda is assistant USTR for Congressional Affairs. He previously worked for Senator Obama on issues of trade, immigration, interstate commerce, labour, and ethics and before that for Senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat, California). The deputy assistant for the same office is Luis Jimenez, previously the legislative director for then-Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (now White House chief of staff). Charles Small is the specialist for congressional affairs; he came from the Inaugural Committee, where he served as entertainment liaison, and before that the Obama campaign.

All of these officials will serve under Ron Kirk, who was confirmed as the new US Trade Representative in mid-March. The new USTR asserted in his opening statement that he and the new administration in general believe in “fair, open and transparent rules-based trade,” a position that has some civil society actors hoping transparency will lead to policies serving a wider variety of stakeholders, including public good concerns.

Gary Locke was confirmed as the US Secretary of Commerce in late March. A former Washington state governor and the first Chinese-American to hold the cabinet post, Locke steps into a challenging role promoting economic development and US business interests in a tough financial climate. And former Federal Communications Commission attorney and Obama campaign policy coordinator Larry Strickling was nominated assistant secretary for Commerce in communications and information. This post makes him head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is the US agency overseeing the agreement toward independence for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the technical coordinator of the internet domain name system.

Margaret Hamburg, a physician and former commissioner of health for New York City, was named Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, with Baltimore Health Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein to be her principal deputy. Media sources picked up some “worry” on the part of industry groups that they will be under more scrutiny on issues such as pharmaceutical company gifts to physicians and medical safety.

Robert Loftis is the new special representative on avian and pandemic influenza for the US State Department, replacing career foreign-service staffer John E. Lange, who had held the post since 2006.

Martin Khor is the new executive director of the intergovernmental South Centre as of 1 March. Khor, from Malaysia, comes from a long career as director of the non-profit Third World Network.

Yong Chanthalangsy is the new permanent representative of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic to the UN.

The Center for International Environmental Law’s Geneva office said goodbye to a key attorney and welcomed the promotion of two others in March. Dalindyebo Shabalala – who has led the group’s intellectual property research – took over as the new managing attorney for CIEL’s Geneva office and David Azoulay left a position coordinating a campaign on chemical and nanotechnologies at Friends of the Earth Europe to join CIEL as lead staff attorney for a new project on nanotechnology. Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder, the managing attorney at CIEL for 8 years and specialist in trade, investment and sustainable development, will join the International Institute of Sustainable Development’s investment programme.

Santiago Roca has moved back to the Universidad ESAN in Lima, after a five-month stint at the competition and consumer policies branch at the UN Conference on Trade and Sustainable Development in Geneva. Roca is the author and contributor to numerous publications on intellectual property, including a book he edited on intellectual property and trade in Peru, which was published last year.

Robb Topolski has been named chief technologist of the Open Technology Initiative at non-profit public policy institute New America Foundation. Topolski will continue to work consulting for advocacy organisations Public Knowledge and Free Press, in addition to his new work at New America Foundation.

And Harold Feld has joined Public Knowledge as its new legal director, where he will lead issues before the Federal Communications Commission and in the courts as well as mentor attorneys at the organisation, according to a press release. Feld previously served as senior vice president at public interest law firm Media Access Project (MAP), an organisation he had been a part of for 10 years. President and CEO of MAP Andrew Jay Schwartzman, who has led the organisation for 30 years, will become its legal and policy director; the organisation will hire a new CEO for administrative and fundraising purposes. And Parul Desai, associate director of MAP, will have an enhanced role in the organisation’s operations post-reorganisation.