Agnès Buzyn became Executive Director for the WHO Academy in August 2021 after being the Director-General’s Envoy for Multilateral Affairs. Prior to joining WHO, Professor Buzyn served as the French Minister of Solidarity and Health from 2017 to 2020. In 2016, she was appointed Chairman of the French Authority for Health (HAS) in charge of notably Health Technology Assessment. Between 2011 and 2016, Professor Buzyn served as the Executive President of the French National Cancer Institute (INCa). During that mandate, she wrote and implemented the national cancer control plan 2014-2019. In the same period, she represented the French government at the governing council of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and in 2015 was elected Vice-President of the IARC. From 2008 to 2013, Professor Buzyn chaired the Executive Board of the French Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute (IRSN).

Agnès Buzyn was a Professor of Hematology at the University Pierre-and-Marie-Curie in Paris. She spent a large part of her career as an academic hematologist and clinician at the University Paris Descartes Necker Hospital, where she was in charge, between 1992 and 2011, of the adult hematology intensive care and bone marrow transplants unit. Before that, starting back in 1995, she carried out research at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) where she headed a team on tumor immunology. Professor Buzyn also served as faculty professor at that hospital. She received an M.D. from University Pierre-and-Marie-Curie in Paris and a Ph.D. in immunology from the University Paris Descartes.