Thomas Zeltner has been elected in June 2023 by the Swiss Red Cross Assembly to serve the Swiss Red Cross as President and Chairman of the Swiss Red Cross Council.Thomas is also the Chairman of the WHO Foundation, an independent grant-making foundation focused on addressing the most pressing global health challenges of today and tomorrow. He has a long history as an innovative leader in public health and was former Secretary of Health of Switzerland and Director-General of the Swiss National Health Authority (1991-2009). Currently, he serves as the Deputy Chair of the University Council of the Medical University of Vienna. He is also the President of UNESCO commission of Switzerland and advises the Federal Government in the implementation and future development of the National Health Policy (“Health2020”). He has also been Professor of Public Health at the University of Berne since 1992. As Secretary of State for Health, Zeltner regularly represented Switzerland at the World Health Assemblies (1991-2009). He was a member and Vice-President of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (1999-2002). More recently he served as Special Envoy of the World Health Organization (2012-14). In this capacity he advised the WHO Director-General Margaret Chan in critical areas of the reform of this UN agency (particularly the financing and budgeting reform, as well as the elaboration of a framework of engagement with non-state actors (FENSA, private sector entities, non-governmental organizations, philanthropic organizations and academic institutions). He graduated with a Medical Degree and a Master’s degree in Law from the University of Bern. He is a 2010 Fellow of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative and Doctor of Law (honoris causa) of the University of Neuchatel.