Derek Yach

Derek Yach is a global public health leader with deep experience based on years of work for WHO, leading corporations including PepsiCo, investment funds, academia (as Professor of Global Health at Yale), and not-for-profit organizations such as the Rockefeller and Smoke Free Foundations. His focus in these diverse settings has been to lead initiatives with impact on chronic diseases and their risks, and on mental health. Looking forward, he believes that governments, industry and investors need to give far greater focus to the health of adults as the pandemic recedes if we are to build more resilient and productive populations. He has focused on ways to implement harm reduction strategies within the context of substance abuse, tobacco control and food and nutrition policy. He has degrees in medicine and public health.