William Frist

Senator William Frist, MD is a former U.S. Senator and Senate Majority Leader, founding partner of Frist Cressey Ventures, and Chairman of the Executive Council of Cressey & Company, a private investment firm focused exclusively on investing in and building leading healthcare businesses. He also serves as Chair of the Nature Conservancy Global Board, the largest conservation organization in the world.

A leading authority on healthcare, Dr. Frist speaks nationally on health reform, government policy, global health, education reform, and volunteerism. His “A Second Opinion” podcast addresses challenging healthcare issues of today from three distinct vantage points: policy, medicine, and innovation.

A heart and lung transplant surgeon, Dr. Frist performed more than 150 heart and lung transplants and founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center.

He is Co-Chair of the Health Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and co-founder of Aspire Health. His current non-profit board service includes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and many private and publicly-traded companies, including Teladoc Health, where he once served as Director. He is also Chairman of both Hope Through Healing Hands, which focuses on maternal and child health and global poverty, and SCORE, a statewide collaborative education reform organization.

Dr. Frist's Senate leadership was instrumental in the passage of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act and of the historic PEPFAR legislation that provided life-saving treatment to over 13 million people and reversed the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide. He also held seats on the Foreign Relations Committee where he chaired the Subcommittee on Africa, the Commerce Committee, and the Banking Committee. He served six years with President Clinton and six years with President Bush. Honoring his pledge to serve just two terms, he left the Senate and his position as Majority Leader in 2006.