Michelle A. Albert, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA

Professor in Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF)

Dr. Michelle A. Albert is president of the American Heart Association (AHA) for 2022-23 and Professor in Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). Her clinical expertise involves both taking care of the most critically ill heart disease patients and preventive cardiology at UCSF. As a physician-scientist-epidemiologist, Dr. Albert is engaged in research that seeks to transform CVD science and healthcare of global populations. A central component of her work focuses on developing implementation strategies to curb adversity-related CVD risk, particularly in women and racial/ethnic minorities with a focus on health disparities and cumulative toxic stress.

Perry Elliott is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at University College London and a Senior Investigator of the UK National Institute for Health Research. He is director of the UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science UCL and a consultant cardiologist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital London, UK. He is Chairman of the ESC Heart Academy and past chair of the ESC Council on Cardiovascular Genomics,  the ESC Working Group on Myocardial and Pericardial Diseases (2010–2012) and the Executive Committee for the European Outcomes Research Programme registry on cardiomyopathies. He is President of Cardiomyopathy UK and an executive Editor for the European Heart Journal.

Dr. Paul Friedman is a Professor of Medicine and the Norman Blane & Billie Jean Harty Chair, Mayo Clinic Department of Cardiovascular Medicine Honoring Robert L. Frye, M.D. at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.  He has served as Director of the Cardiac Implantable Device Lab, Mayo Clinic. He is a trained electrical engineer, with deep experience in innovation (> 60 patents issued, named Minnesota Top Inventor, founder of device and AI-based med tech companies), and scientific research (> 500 scientific original publications). He is a committed educator, serving as a director for 5 national and international meetings, editor of 7 textbooks, and author of over 60 book chapters. He is a frequent visiting professor and lecturer at educational meetings. His clinical practice includes implantation of cardiac devices, extraction, complex ablation and left atrial appendage occlusion.  His research interests include testing and development of novel devices and new AI tools in medicine.

Edward T.A. Fry, MD, FACC, attended medical school at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and completed his residency in internal medicine at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He completed a two-year cardiovascular research fellowship focused on pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of native and genetically modified plasminogen activators. He also completed a general cardiology fellowship at Washington University, where he then served as assistant professor and medical director of the cardiac transplant program before completing an interventional cardiology fellowship at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital – Indianapolis.

In 1991, he joined the cardiology practice at St. Vincent where he continues to be a busy interventional and general cardiologist and serves as chair of the Ascension National Cardiovascular Service Line. He helped launch Navion Healthcare Solutions, a subsidiary data quality management software company owned by Ascension, where he previously served as board chair.

Dr. Fry is past president and governor of ACC's Indiana Chapter. Within the ACC, he has served on the Audit and Compliance Committee (chair), Digital Strategy Steering Committee; Interventional Section Leadership Council; Surviving MI Initiative; Integrating the Health Enterprise Health Policy Work Group; Clinical Quality Committee; Prior Authorization Work Group; ACC Telemedicine Project; ACC COVID-19 Hub; Board of Governors Steering Committee; Innovations Development Work Group; ACC Premier Oversight Work Group (chair); Board of Trustees (BOT) Task Force on Clinician Well-Being; Health Systems Task Force; ACC/AHA Ethics and Professionalism Consensus Task Force, and ACC Nominating Committee. He has been a presenter, moderator and session chair at ACC Annual Scientific Session, ACC CV Summit, MedAxiom CV Transforum, Heart House Roundtables and is a member of HeartPAC, ACC's political action committee.

Gerhard Hindricks is a Professor of Medicine / Cardiology and the Medical Director of the Heart Center Leipzig. He is the Director of the Department of Electrophysiology of the Heart Center and the General Manager of the Leipzig Heart Institute (LHI). Gerhard Hindricks has a longstanding involvement in innovations and the development and clinical implementation of new technologies in the field of cardiovascular medicine and beyond. He has fundamental interest in design and implementation of novel process and diagnostic/therapeutic pathways in medicine. Moreover, Gerhard is Principal Investigator of multiple international, randomized and potentially guideline-relevant clinical trials. He has served the European Society of Cardiology in several leadership functions including President of European Heart Rhythm Association and is member of the ESC Digital Committee. He is the Chairman of the 2020 Guidelines of the ESC for the management of atrial fibrillation. In addition, Gerhard Hindricks is the Chair of the ESC Task Force “Evolution of cardiovascular medicine, training and education”. Overall, he has published almost 800 peer-reviewed articles in the leading journals of the world and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Europace Journal, one of the top international journals in the field of cardiac arrhythmias.

Gerald Maurer, MD, FESC, FACC, is Professor of Medicine and past Chair of Cardiology and of Internal Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna.

Before that he was Director of the Cardiac Non-invasive Laboratory at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and Associate Professor at UCLA School of Medicine.

His main research interests lie in the areas of cardiovascular imaging, valvular and ischemic heart disease.  Prof. Maurer has published more than 450 peer-reviewed papers, as well as over 30 book chapters and 3 books.

He currently is the Editor-in-Chief of the European Heart Journal–Cardiovascular Imaging and  an Editor of ESC Cardiomed and of the ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine .

Dr. Marc A. Pfeffer, a graduate of Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, received both his doctorate in physiology and biophysics and his medical degree from the University of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. He completed his internship, residency and clinical fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston. Dr. Pfeffer is currently the Distinguished Dzau Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Senior Physician in the Cardiovascular Division at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.  A noted researcher, Dr. Pfeffer, along with his late wife, Dr. Janice Pfeffer, and Eugene Braunwald MD, is credited with introducing the concept that angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) could attenuate adverse ventricular remodelling following myocardial infarction and that this use would result in a prolongation of survival and other clinical benefits.  Since this initial discovery, he has had a principal role in several practice-changing clinical outcome trials. He is well known for exploring the interfaces between renal and cardiovascular diseases.

An internationally recognized expert in the field of cardiology, Dr. Pfeffer was recognized by Science Watch as having the most ‘Hot Papers’ (highly cited) in all of clinical medicine and was listed as one of the highly influential biomedical researchers of 1996-2011 in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.  He is the recipient of the William Harvey Award of the American Society of Hypertension, the Okamoto Award from Japan’s Vascular Disease Research Foundation, the American Heart Association Clinical Research Prize and the James B. Herrick Award.  The Distinguished Scientist Awards from both the American Heart Association as well as the American College of Cardiology. The Lifetime Achievement Award from both the Heart Failure Society of America and the Heart Failure Association of the European Congress of Cardiology.  The Gold Medal Award from the European Society of Cardiology in 2018.  Dr. Pfeffer has Honorary Doctoral Degrees from Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, from UCLouvain University in Belgium and from Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.

• Professor of Cardiology and Consultant Cardiologist at St. George’s Hospital NHS Trust University of London where he is also the Director of the MSc in Heart Failure.
• He received his medical degree and his specialisation in cardiovascular medicine from “La Sapienza” University of Rome in Italy, and his PhD in Medical Sciences from the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, UK.
• He is the President-Elect of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC.
• Served as member of the CVWP of the European Medicines Agency since July 2020, he has been board member of the Italian Space Agency and member of the pricing and reimbursement committee at the Italian Drug Agency.
• Fellow of several societies such as the European Society of Cardiology, the Heart Failure Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the Italian Federation of Cardiology.
• Serves as Editorial Board Member for European Heart Journal, European Journal of Heart Failure, European Heart Journal—Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy, ESC Heart Failure, Cardiovascular Diabetology, Nature Research Scientific Reports, Cardiovascular Reviews, Advances in Therapy, European Cardiology Review, and Climacteric; he has authored or co-authored more than 500 peer-reviewed articles.

• Co-Editor for Eastern Europe, European Heart Journal
• Vice-president, European Society of Cardiology (2020-2022)
• President, Heart failure Association of the ESC (2018-2020)
• Academician, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
• Professor, University of Belgrade Faculty of Medicine and Heart Failure Center, University Medical Center, Belgrade
• President, Heart Failure Society of Serbia

After completing his training and fellowship at Belgrade University School of Medicine and Kings College Hospital in London, UK, he spent two years as a Visiting assistant professor in Methodist Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA. Starting in the mid-90's, he dedicated his clinical and research activity to chronic and acute heart failure.
Prof. Seferovic has a long standing experience in the ESC/HFA and devoted the last three decades of his professional life to promote the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease.
In the mandate of 2018-2020, he was a President of Heart Failure Association of the ESC, tracing new avenues for its further development. Subsequently, he committed his energy and ideas to the three ECS/HFA megaprojects: HFA Atlas (first edition completed in 2021, second edition ongoing, to be completed in 2023), ESC/HFA Quality of Care Centres (the project started in June 2021 in 9 European countries, the pilot phase will last until 2024) and ESC Textbook on heart failure (256 authors, 6 editors, 1100 pages, Publisher Oxford University press, to be published in September 2022).
As a Vice-President of the ESC during the mandate 2020-22, he was in charge of connecting ESC and eighteen National Cardiac Societies of South-Eastern Europe and succeeded to keep a close contact and the best image of the ESC, in the harsh environment of COVID 19 pandemic. He acted as the Co-Chair of the European Heart Agency, in pursuing Agency activities and projects. In addition, he was appointed a European Heart Journal Co-editor for Eastern Europe and organized ten Joint sessions of the EHJ and relevant National Cardiac Societies. Furthermore, he was elected to the Heart Failure Hall of Fame of the Heart Failure Society of America in July 2021.
Prof. Seferović has coauthored a total of more than 600 publications, h-index 66, including multiple papers in peer-reviewed international journals. He has a total citation of 37254 (Google Scholar) /57172 (Scopus). He presented more than 300 lectures at international conferences.
Prof. Seferović believes that the strength of ESC is in close cooperation of the basic scientists, clinicians and nurses, as well as in establishing the mutual dialogue, analyzing alternative views and recognizing different opinions.
He proved to be highly motivated to put his full capacities in overcoming the future ESC scientific and organizational challenges. Moreover, he demonstrated that he is capable of successfully promoting ESC as a world leader in cardiovascular medicine, strengthening its world-wide network.

Thor Sundt, MD, is the Churchill Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Cardiac Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, co-director of the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center at MGH, and most recently has been appointed the Director of the Cardiac Surgery Clinical Service for Mass General Brigham.  He has served on the faculty of the Departments of Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Mayo Clinic prior to returning to MGH.  He is Past President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. His clinical focus is surgery of acquired cardiovascular conditions in adults including diseases of the thoracic aorta and valvular heart disease.

Franz Weidinger is Head of Department at Klinik Landstraße (former Rudolfstiftung Hospital), a teaching hospital affiliated to Vienna Medical University, Austria. His clinical focus is percutaneous coronary interventions and acute coronary syndromes. Deputy Head of Division of Cardiology at Medical University of Innsbruck (1997 – 2007), Secretary (2006-2012) and President (2013-2015) of the Austrian Society of Cardiology. Member of EAPCI since 2006 (Co-chair and chair, Database & Registry Committee, 2011-2016), EuroPCR Programme committee member, 2006-2009. Member of EORP Oversight committee 2016-2018. Board member of ESC as Councillor for ESC Young Community 2016-2018, Vice President of ESC 2018-2020, President of ESC 2022-2024.