As President of the Global Health Program, Dr. Tadataka (Tachi) Yamada leads the foundation's efforts to help develop and deliver low-cost, life-saving health tools for the developing world. He oversees the foundation's global health grant portfolio, as well as its advocacy program.

Before joining the foundation, Yamada served as Chairman of Research and Development and was a member of the Board of Directors at GlaxoSmithKline, positions he previously held at SmithKline Beecham. 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, a Fellow of the Imperial College of Medicine, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of National Academy of Science in the U.S. and the Academy of Medical Sciences in the U.K. He graduated from Stanford University and received his medical degree from New York University.