Alexander Preker, MD, PhD

Professor Preker is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, an Executive Scholar at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and a Lecturer with the joint Ecole des Hautes Etudes commerciales de Paris (HEC) — Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar Leadership Program.

Professor Preker a globally recognized expert on financing, capital investment, private sector development, and market-based solutions to public policy challenges. He is President and CEO of the Health Investment & Financing Corporation and a member of the board of several companies and organizations, including the USA HealthCare Alliance (USAHA) that works closely with the US Department of Commerce and the Export-Import Bank of the USA (EXIM).

He was a Founding Member of the New York Chapter of the Keiretsu Forum, a Limited Liability Partner with Professor Preker is active as an early-stage investor and business development advisor the Keiretsu Capital Fund, an active investor with OurCrowd and other investment vehicles that focus on early-stage companies that have a high potential for impact including in the environmental sector. He is a Member of the Board of the International Collaboration and Exchange Program, an international medical student exchange program. He was one of the Commissioners on the Commission on Pollution, Health, and Development.

Prior to his current work, Professor Preker had a distinguished career, working at different times for the World Bank Group (WBG), including the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). And at various times he was on external assignment with the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Labour Organization (ILO). From 2007 to 2012, Professor Preker was Head of the Health Industry Group and Investment Policy for the Investment Climate Department of the World Bank/IFC. The Department was a leader in investing in the new solutions to the threats of climate change, infrastructure, public-private-partnerships, health and education, e-Government solutions, and competition. He and his team set up a US$1 billion Investment Facility to improve the market environment for private sector participation and expand small and medium-sized businesses in the Africa Region, and did the preparatory work to set up a similar facility for Asia.

Earlier in his World Bank career, as Chief Economist for the health sector, Professor Preker was responsible for oversight over an annual lending pipeline of about US$3 billion with a total portfolio value in the range of US$15 billion. During this period, he had the privilege of working with both Lawrence Summers (former Director of the National Economic Council in the Obama Administration) and Joseph Stiglitz (recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences) during their respective tenures as Chief Economist for the World Bank Group (WBG), as well as many ministers, other senior officials, and private businesses and investors. It was in the 1990s, during Mr. Summers’s tenure at the Bank, that the organization largely abandoned industrial policy in favor of more market-based approaches to industrial development. Notably, during the 1990s, Professor Preker was involved in the transformation of the moribund planned economies and the failed socialist industrial policy of Central and Eastern European countries to more dynamic market-based economies following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. He and others from his team were also involved in providing technical inputs into and compliance monitoring of several of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as the later Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Professor Preker has published extensively, having written many scientific articles, and authored over 20 books. He is the Editor-in-Chief for the World Scientific Series on Health Investment and Financing. Previously, Professor Preker was the Chair of the Editorial Board for the World Hospitals and Health Services journal of the International Hospital Federation (IHF) and is now an Honorary Member of the Governing Council of the Federation. During his tenure at the World Bank, he was a member of the Editorial Board for the World Bank’s External Operations Publication Department and Editor-in-Chief of the Bank’s Health, Nutrition, and Population Series.

Professor Preker holds several academic appointments. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, an Executive Scholar at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and a Lecturer with the joint Ecole des Hautes Etudes commerciales de Paris (HEC) — Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar Leadership Program. His education includes a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an MD from the University of British Columbia/McGill, and a Diploma in Medical Law and Ethics from Kings College, London.