Prof Sandra C. Buttigieg is the President of EHMA and a Professor and Head of the Department of Health Systems Management and Leadership (HSML), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta, Malta. She is a Consultant in Public Health Medicine, Head-Clinical Performance Unit, and Chair-Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Team, at Mater Dei Hospital in Malta. She is the outgoing Global-Representative-at-large of the American Academy of Management-HCM Division. She is member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of EHMA. She lectures in HSM, Public Health, Family Medicine, Research Methodology and Evidence-based Health Research (EVBRES).

She authored/co-authored several articles in peer-reviewed international journals, and widely participated in international conferences, and congresses. She is on the Editorial Boards of PloS One, Health Services Management Research, International Journal of Human Resources Management, Journal of Health Organization and Management, and Frontiers Public Health. She is Frontiers Topic Editor: “Network for Evaluation of One Health (NEOH) Case Studies”; “Patient Safety: Delivering Cost-Contained, High Quality, Person-Centered, and Safe Healthcare” and “Health Service Management and Leadership: COVID-Style”.

She is a Fellow of two programmes of the Salzburg Global Seminar, related to health care, which were led by amongst others, past presidents of the Institute of Medicine, namely, Donald Berwick and Harvey Fineberg.

Prof Buttigieg has been visiting scholar in the US (JMU -Harrisonburg, VA), UK -University of Birmingham and Aston University, Birmingham, and Kuwait (Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Kuwait University).

Prof Axel Kaehne is Vice-President of EHMA. He joined Edge Hill as a Senior Research Fellow in April 2013. He was appointed Reader in Health Service Research in 2016 and is currently Professor of Health Services Research and Director of the Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit (EPA). He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Integrated Care.

Axel has designed and delivered evaluations of health improvement programmes in England and Wales and is also a member of the Children’s Nursing Research Unit at Alder Hey, the Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

He works with colleagues across England to establish an Integrated Care Researcher Network. He is teaching Research Methodologies, Quantitative Approaches and Statistics/SPSS on the MCh and MRes course in the faculty and supervises currently three PhD students and several Master’s students. He is leading a module in Strategic Clinical Leadership and the dissertation module for the MCh (taught) degree.

Dr Alexandre Lourenço is Treasurer at EHMA. He is hospital administrator at Coimbra Hospital and University Center and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the NOVA School of Public Health,  having performed public functions in various institutions of the Portuguese Ministry of Health. Consultant at the World Health Organization (WHO) in financing, health systems strengthening, and health services delivery. He is a NOVA SBE Health Economics and Management Knowledge Centre Associate Member.

He holds a Ph.D. in Management from NOVA School of Business & Economics, Lisbon. He is a Specialist in Hospital Administration (MHA), a postgraduate in Primary Health Care Management, and a Master in Health Management (MSc) from NOVA School of Public Health. Former President of the Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators (2016-2022).

Dr Teppo Heikkilä is Project Director, Health and Social Services Reform for Finland, while being on leave from the post of Chief Administrative Medical Officer at HUS – Helsinki University Hospital.

Prof Todorka Kostadinova is Vice-Rector for International Cooperation, Accreditation and Quality at Varna Medical University.​​​

She has two Master’s degrees from the University of Economics – Varna and a PhD from the University of National and World Economy, Sofia.

Her academic career has been further developed by successive appointments as an Extraordinary Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Health Care Management at MU-Varna (2002), Associate Professor of the same Department (2003) and Professor – in 2012 in the scientific speciality ‘Organisation and Management outside the Sphere of Material Production’. She has two specialities in the field of healthcare: ‘Health Economics’ (2005) and ‘Medical Informatics and Health Management’ (2006).

She delivered lectures as a guest lecturer in a Master’s Programme in Health Management at the University in Bern, Switzerland (2005 – 2006) and Medical University – Vienna (2009-2011). From 2008 to 2011 she was a member of an international research team at Berkeley University, after specialising in Leadership in healthcare at the same University.

Within the period 2009 – 2013, Prof Kostadinova combines academic work with management positions at various levels as a parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of Health (2009), Deputy Minister of Health (2009 – 2010), a member of the Control Board (2009) and Supervisory Board (2010) of the National Health insurance Fund (NHIF), Sofia, a coordinator for Bulgaria of the International Network for Health in South-Eastern Europe (2009-2010), a member of the National Commissions and Committees on European Politics – at the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Bulgaria, on ethnic issues – at the Ministry of Interior Affairs, Chairman of the National Council on Food Safety at the Ministry of Health (2009-2010), Deputy Minister for International Cooperation, Public Health, including work with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, European programmes and projects, Electronic Healthcare.

Dr Eszter Kovács first obtained an MSc degree in sociology at the University of Szeged in 2007. She started working as a lecturer in sociology of medicine at the Institute of Behavioural Sciences and as a statistician at the unit of Psychiatry of Children and Youth, Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged. She obtained her PhD degree in Health Sciences at the Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Semmelweis University in 2012. Dr Kovacs works as Assistant Professor at the Health Services Management Training Centre, Faculty of Health and Public Services, Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, where she acts as head of unit of the Health Workforce Planning Knowledge Centre. She has participated in and played crucial roles in several international projects: FP7 projects e.g., Health Prometheus, European Cross-border Care Collaborations, Joint Actions on European Health Workforce Planning and Forecasting, the SEPEN Joint Tender on animating the European health workforce expert network, and JA ImpleMENTAL, and some EU-co-funded projects on health workforce reforms, e.g. TaSHI and OASES projects. Dr Kovacs also coordinates the activities of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Human Resources for Health Development since 2015. Due to this latter role, she had the opportunity to contribute to the design and creation of the WHO HRH Leadership and Management Prototype curricula. Her areas of expertise are human resources management, HRH data and related policy issues, strategic health workforce planning,  health workforce education, health professionals’ mobility, cross-border health care, innovations in HRH management, digitalisation of the health workforce, mental health and wellbeing of health workers, and health/medical tourism.

Prof Federico Lega, PhD, is a Full Professor of Health Administration at the Public Health Department at Milan University, where he runs all courses in healthcare management and policy for medical students and leads the Research Centre in Health Administration (HEAD).

He is also a Professor at SDA Bocconi School of Management (SDA) where he teaches courses in Public Management and Health Services Management. He leads the research in strategy and organisational development in healthcare at the Bocconi Research Center on Health Policy and Management (CERGAS). From 2007 to 2014 he has been the Head of executive education for health managers, clinicians and medical industry leaders at the Bocconi School of Management (SDA).

Since 2015, he is acting as Editor in Chief of the journal Health Services Management Research, Associate Editor of BMC Health Services Research and Medical Care Research Review. He has published eight books and over 150 articles in journals.

As a consultant, he has advised health systems on health policy matters and governance issues, several hospitals and networks in re-organisations, strategy-making processes, value-based approaches, economic evaluations, and process management, both at the national and international level.

In the last ten years, he has advised several companies in the medical industry on their transformation toward value-based models and on the development of effective market-access initiatives. Since 2002 he has coordinated over fifteen initiatives of duality or study tours, involving the exchange of managers and senior clinicians between countries (Italy, UK, USA, Germany and France). He currently sits on the boards of hospitals and local health authorities, advises health departments of regions, national health agencies and insurances, and works as a consultant for WHO.

Prof Ann Mahon is Professor of Health Leadership and Head of the Health Management Group at the University of Manchester. Her main areas of interest are in management and leadership development and she has designed and delivered programmes in the UK, US, Serbia and more recently Thailand.