Dr. João Breda (MPH, PhD, MBA) is the Head of the new WHO Athens Office for Quality of Care and Special Adviser to the Regional Director on the development of Sub-Regional Offices. He previously held senior positions at WHO in Copenhagen and Moscow and from 2014 to 2021 led the WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, supporting 53 Member States. His team received the WHO Director-General’s Award of Excellence in 2019.

For more than a decade, he was responsible for WHO Europe’s strategies on nutrition, physical activity, and obesity. He has received numerous international awards, including the Portuguese Ministry of Health Gold Medal (2018), and is ranked among the top 1% of global researchers on obesity, with over 250 scientific publications and 20 books.

Dr. Breda holds a PhD in Nutritional Sciences, an MBA, and a Master’s in Public Health. He is fluent in Portuguese, English, and Spanish, with additional knowledge of French and Russian.