Tachi Yamada

Dr. Tadataka (Tachi) Yamada KBE is currently president of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In this role, he leads the foundation’s efforts to help develop and deliver low-cost, life-saving health tools for the developing world.

Before joining the foundation, Dr. Yamada served as Chairman of Research and Development and was a member of the Board of Directors at GlaxoSmithKline.

Prior to that, he was Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and Physician-in-Chief at the University of Michigan Medical Center.

Yamada is a past president of the American Gastroenterological Association and the Association of American Physicians, a master of the American College of Physicians, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science in the United States and the Academy of Medical Sciences in the United Kingdom.

On September 19, 2007 Yamada was named Knight Commander of the British Empire for his contribution to the British pharmaceutical industry and for his contributions to medical research in Britain.

Dr Yamada holds a bachelors degree in history from Stanford University, and in July 2007 was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of East Anglia. In July 2008 he was awarded an honorary DSc by the University of Warwick.

Dr Yamada is a fellow of Imperial College London, and gave the last centenary lecture at Imperial College London in March 2008, which was chaired by Sir Richard Sykes.