Alexander Preker, MD, PhD

Professor Alexander S. Preker (Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University and Executive Scholar at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York) is a globally recognized scholar and expert on financing, capital investment, private sector development, and market-based solutions to public policy challenges. 

In addition to his academic teaching and research, Professor Preker is the President and CEO of the Health Investment & Financing Corporation and a Founding Member of the New York Chapter of the Keiretsu Forum, a Limited Liability Partner with the Keiretsu Capital Fund.  His company is an active investor with OurCrowd and other investment vehicles that focus on early-stage companies that have a high potential for impact. He serves on the board of several of the companies that these groups have funded. He is also on the Board of the USA Health Alliance (USAHA), an organization that works closely with the US Department of Commerce and the Exon Bank to promote export of American health care technology.

Prior to his current work, Professor Preker had a distinguished career, working at different times for the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the World Health Organization (WHO). From 2007 to 2012, Professor Preker was Head of the Health Industry Group and Investment Policy for the Investment Climate Department of the International Finance Corporation (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 as well as the preparatory work for setting up a similar facility for Asia. 

Earlier in his World Bank career, as Chief Economist for the health sector, he 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 under 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 as well as many Ministers, other senior officials, private businesses and investors. It was in the 1990s, during Mr. Summers’s tenure at the Bank, that the World Bank Group largely abandoned industrial policy in favor of more market-based approaches to industrial development. Notably, following the collapse of the Former Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Professor Preker was involved in helping countries in that region transform their moribund planned economies to dynamic and market-based solutions.  He and others from his team were also involved in the early phases of designing and monitoring compliance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the 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 and a reviewer of several journals.  Previously, he was the Chair of the Editorial Board for the World Hospitals and Health Services journal and is now an Honorary Member of the Governing Council of the International Hospital Federation. During his tenure at the World Bank, he was a member of its main Editorial Board in the External Operations Publication Department.  He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the Bank’s Health, Nutrition and Population Publications.

Professor Preker holds several academic appointments. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Management at Columbia University and an Executive Scholar at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.  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 in London.