Derek Yach

Derek Yach has focused his career on advancing global health. He is Senior Vice President (SVP) of the Vitality Group, part of Discovery Holdings Ltd, where he leads the Vitality Institute for Health Promotion. Prior to that he was SVP Global Health and Agriculture Policy at PepsiCo where he supported portfolio transformation and led engagement with major international groups and new African initiatives at the nexus of agriculture and nutrition. He has headed global health at the Rockefeller Foundation, has been a Professor of Global Health at Yale University, and is a former Executive Director for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health of the World Health Organization (WHO). At WHO, he served as cabinet director under Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland where he led the development of WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the Global Strategy on Diet and Physical Activity. Dr. Yach established the Centre for Epidemiological Research at the South African Medical Research Council. He has authored or co-authored over 200 articles covering the breadth of global health and regularly publishes blogs and is cited by the Huffington Post, New York Times and Economist. Dr. Yach serves on several advisory boards including those of the Clinton Global Initiative, the World Economic Forum, the NIH's Fogarty International Centre, the Mass General Global Health Board and PepsiCo's Scientific Advisory Board. He is Chairman of the Board of Cornerstone Capital. His degrees include an MBChB from the University of Cape Town, BSc (Hons Epi) from the University of Stellenbosch; an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and a DSc (Honoris Causa) from Georgetown University. He lives in Connecticut, USA. His main leisure activity involves swimming in pools, rivers and the ocean.