Luke Murumba (Real Estate, 2013-2017), senior legal counsel at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, practiced in the firm’s Real Estate Department. Luke received his B.A. from Amherst College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

1. What’s the most interesting and/or rewarding aspect of your role as senior legal counsel at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria?

I get to wake up every morning and tackle complex matters that run the gamut. The Global Fund currently invests more than $13+ billion in grant and targeted public/private sector catalytic investments in health systems strengthening, large-scale procurement of health products and other public health interventions—all in what are often challenging legal and risk contexts. In particular, I focus on the Global Fund innovative and blended finance investments, and funding and grant management in challenging environments (e.g., armed conflicts, sanctioned countries, etc.). I love that my work is often not strictly “legal,” but that my life experience and my training in the law—honed at Paul, Weiss—can always be critically brought to bear.

2. How did you get into the nonprofit sector, and why do you stay?

My career path has and likely will continue to take fun and untraditional turns. Prior to law school and Paul, Weiss, I spent several years in sales and trading at an investment bank. In the same circuitous vein, I learned about the Global Fund’s work from a close law school classmate and former New York big law associate who had joined the Global Fund a year before me. What this friend described, and what appealed to me most, was an in-house role that allowed autonomy to make hard and consequential decisions for the institution, and to play a role in making an impact on some of the most intractable public health issues of our time. I jumped at the opportunity even though I had just gotten engaged to my wife (a former Paul, Weiss litigator). I stay in this work because I love the substance and complexity of matters I work on every day, especially in an increasingly challenging geopolitical and economic climate when the most vulnerable people the Global Fund serves need the most support.

3. What advice would you give to a lawyer who wants to work in the nonprofit space?

Be open to and prepared for the opportunity and challenge of choosing your own adventure. There are a lot of roles and ways to make an impact in the space, but the lack of a common road map can be daunting at times if you don’t make the effort to think deeply about the kind of work and role that might make you happy. You have to continue to reflect on and refine your answer to that question through your work and pursuits.