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Stephen Lewis began his career in Canadian politics with his election to the Ontario Legislative Assembly at the age of 25, and went on to become leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party from 1970 to 1978. In 1984, he was appointed Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, the first of several senior UN roles spanning two decades. Among those, Mr. Lewis chaired the committee that drafted the first UN Program on African Economic Recovery and the first International Conference on Climate Change, coordinated an international study on the "Consequences of Armed Conflict on Children," and was appointed by the Organization of African Unity to its Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the Genocide in Rwanda. From 1995 to 1999, he was the deputy executive director of UNICEF, and, in 2001, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan named him the first special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, a position he held through 2006.

Along with co-directing AIDS-Free World, Mr. Lewis is also professor of global health at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and chair of the board of the Stephen Lewis Foundation. He was co-chair of the Leadership Programme Committee for the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City in August 2008, and serves on the board of directors for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. In 2006, The Canadian Booksellers Association's named him Author of the Year and awarded him the Libris Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year for his best-selling book Race Against Time.

Among many honors and distinguished awards, Mr. Lewis has been named a Companion of the Order of Canada, an appointment that confers the highest degree of merit for achievement and service, in addition to 28 honorary university degrees. In 2005, Time magazine listed him among the World's 100 Most Influential People, and in 2007, the African  Kingdom of Lesotho conferred upon Mr. Lewis that country's highest honor, Knight Commander of the Most Dignified Order of Moshoeshoe.