When it comes to context, by 2050, the world’s population is expected to rise to 9.7 billion, with 2 billion over the age of 60. The world is ill-equipped to respond to this paradigm shift, and the global health system will have to undergo major transformation to provide an environment in which people live healthier and longer lives with health security across borders, and with access to affordable care.

Arnaud Bernaert believes indeed that in the next decade, healthcare delivery systems will have to transform radically. He believes that capital-intensive, hospital-centric, interventions-driven systems are ones of the past, as they have demonstrated they are both unsustainable and ineffective. His theory of change is that the future of health and health care resides in high-touch, data-enabled delivery systems, integrated across the continuum of care from prevention to care delivery, with the patients becoming consumers of most care services in non-acute care settings. He additionally believes that complex care will be transformed by precision medicine as enabled by progress in genomics, regenerative medicine, and clinical analytics. Finally, he believes in a population-based approach to health promotion and disease prevention enabled by a transformed global health architecture based on purposeful public and private cooperation.

An MBA graduate from HEC, Bernaert has dedicated his prolific career to strategy, partnerships, M&A, and healthcare policy matters. He has also published extensively on those themes and received significant media coverage. This he has done first as a senior executive in multinational organizations such as Baxter and Philips Healthcare, then as the global head for health and healthcare industries at the World Economic Forum. Bernaert has a unique understanding of global health and healthcare challenges. He also maintains deep personal connections within a unique network of industry CEOs, policymakers, regulators, heads of international organizations, and civil society leaders.

As a member of the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum, Bernaert has launched defining public—private coalitions in fields as diverse as epidemics preparedness, vaccines and antibiotics innovation, value-based health care, precision medicine regulations, access to primary care, payment reforms, and healthcare IT, to name just a few. On such matters and many others, he has also addressed—as key note speaker, panelist, moderator, or knowledge expert—the participants of the most prestigious global healthcare gatherings, including the World Economic Forum, UNGA, the Forbes conferences, World Health Assembly Week, World Health Summit, and many other conferences.