Dr. Mihály Kökény, PhD. currently works as a health policy consultant. He is a senior fellow
of the Global Health Program at The Graduate Institute of International and Development
Studies (Geneva, Switzerland) and contributes to global health diplomacy education and
research. He is also a lecturer at the University of Debrecen, Faculty of Public Health in
Hungary (on global health and health policy). As a senior policy advisor to the Regional
Director of the WHO’s European Region he assists national health policy planning in selected
Member States in addition to working in a couple of regional projects.
Until 2010 he was working in political positions. Dr. Kökény was elected to the Hungarian
Parliament in 1994 and served there between 1994 and 2010. He was working in various
government functions including Health and Welfare Minister (1996-98, 2003-4). In the
Parliament he was the Chairman of the Health Committee (1998-2002, 2006-2010).
During his life-career his international activities covered a broad field of health promotion,
environment and health and health care reforms as WHO, EU, OECD and World Bank
consultant and speaker of major conferences. From 2008 until 2011 he served as a Member of
the Executive Board of WHO, from 2010 he was the Chairman of the Board.
Dr. Kökény, a Hungarian citizen is a medical doctor specialized for clinical cardiology and
has a degree from health care management and political sciences. In 2014 he co-edited the
first ever textbook on health diplomacy in Hungarian.