As President of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Tadataka Yamada leads the foundation's efforts to help develop and deliver low-cost, life-saving health tools for the developing world. He overseas the foundation's global health grant portfolio, as well as its advocacy program. Dr. Yamada is part of the foundation's executive management team.

Before joining the foundation, Dr. 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.

Dr. Yamada is 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 National Academy of Sciences in the U.S. and the Academy of Medical Sciences in the UK. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the National Board of Medical Examiners, and a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Minority Faculty Development Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Yamada was formerly a Trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and The Franklin Institute. He has authored many original manuscripts as well as The Textbook of Gastroenterology. Dr. Yamada graduated from Stanford University and received his medical degree from New York University.