Avril Benoît is a Canadian nonprofit executive and humanitarian.

She is a former journalist and broadcaster who worked as a radio host and documentary producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Benoît has worked in operational and senior leadership roles at Médecins Sans Frontières, and is the CEO of Doctors Without Borders USA.

Early life, family, and education

Benoît was born in Ottawa and has lived in Toronto, Montreal, and New York City.

In 2004-2005, Benoît was a Southam Journalism Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto. Her research focussed on human rights, global governance and official development assistance. She has a Masters of Business Administration in community economic development from Cape Breton University. She has been an editor of The Record newspaper in Sherbrooke and worked as a freelance. Her reporting covered the 1990–91 Haitian general election Her CBC career television broadcasting in Montreal in 1996 and worked on This Morning radio program in 1997. Between 1999 and 2004, Benoît hosted and produced Here and Now and CBC Radio One's newsmagazine weekday afternoons on CBC Radio One in Toronto. before working as the director of communications and development for the organization's Swiss headquarters. of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières in the United States (MSF-USA). In 2025, Benoît announced her impending departure from MSF-USA, noting that she had reached the six-year term limit of the organization.

References

  • Dispatches: Avril Benoît on the view from South Sudan's other refugee crisis, Avril Benoît, 2014
  • Slum Cities: A Shifting World, CBC Radio Canada (2006 documentary)