Soonman Kwon

Soonman is Professor and Former Dean of the School of Public Health, Seoul National University (SNU) and has worked over 30 years on UHC, health finance and systems, ageing and long-term care, and pharmaceutical policy in Korea and LMICs. He is the founding director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health System and Financing and was the Chief of the Health Sector Group in the Asian Development Bank (ADB). He was the president of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), which is an R&D agency under the Ministry of Health and Welfare. He is a member of the WHO (WPRO) TAG (Technical Advisory Group) on UHC and the WHO (HQ) TAG on Pricing Policies for Medicines.

He served as president of leading academic associations in Korea, including the Health Economic Association, the Society of Health Policy and Management, the Association of Schools of Public Health, and the Society of Gerontology. He is an associate editor (Asia Region Editor) of Health Policy (Elsevier) and International Journal of Health Economics and Management (Springer). He received PhD from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (1993) and taught at the School of Public Policy, University of Southern California. He has held visiting positions at the Harvard School of Public Health, the London School of Economics, the University of Toronto, the University of Tokyo, Peking University, and the University of Bremen. He received the Excellence in Education Award from Seoul National University in 2020.

He has been a member of the board or advisory committees of Health Systems Global (HSG), WHO Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, WHO Centre for Health and Development, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), etc. He has occasionally been a short-term consultant of WHO, World Bank, and GIZ for health system and financing in Algeria, Armenia, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Georgia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.