Robert P. Kocher, commonly known as Bob Kocher, is a physician and health care policy expert. He grew up in Bellevue, Washington, riding his bike on dirt trails that later became the site of Microsoft's first buildings. Kocher earned undergraduate degrees from the University of Washington in Political Science and Zoology, and an MD from the George Washington University School of Medicine. He completed a research fellowship with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health, followed by an internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Prior to his Obama administration role, he was a partner at McKinsey & Company, leading the McKinsey Global Institute’s Center for U.S. Health System Reform, focusing on health policy, productivity, clinical outcomes, and patient experience. During his White House tenure on the National Economic Council staff under Larry Summers, Kocher contributed to health care reform legislation, led aspects of the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” childhood obesity initiative, helped form the Partnership for a Healthier America, and served on the Federal Advisory Panel for a national obesity strategy. Currently, he is a partner at Venrock and an adjunct professor at Stanford. In addition, Kocher serves on the boards of Devoted Health, Virta Health, Aledade, Lyra Health, Sitka, Need, Accompany Health, and Premera Blue Cross. He is a board observer at SmithRx, Stride, Suki, and The Public Health Company, and previously at Included Health (Grand Rounds + Doctor on Demand) and Castlight. Kocher is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow and Advisory Board Member at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at USC, a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, and serves on advisory boards for the Harvard Medical School Department of Health Care Policy and the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM). He is on the Board of Advisors at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), where he co-authored white papers on reopening schools and the economy during COVID-19, and served on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s coronavirus testing task force. Kocher resides in Palo Alto, California, with his wife Cindy Chen, two daughters, and a golden retriever. He maintains a blog at bobkocher.org and is active on X (formerly Twitter) as @bobkocher.