The World Heart Federation (WHF) announced the results of its new board at the World Congress of Cardiology 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Professor GE Junbo, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the Department of Cardiology at ZhongShan Hospital Fudan University, was elected WHF President-Elect by the vote of its global membership. He will serve a term from 2027 to 2028 before assuming the presidency.
According to WHF convention, the President-Elect takes office in 2027 and succeeds to the presidency in 2029. This also makes Ge the first cardiovascular specialist from the Chinese mainland to head the world's most influential cardiovascular non-governmental organization in its more than four decades of history.
Founded in 1978 and headquartered in Geneva, WHF is the only organization in the global cardiovascular field that maintains formal relations with the World Health Organization. Its member network spans more than 100 countries, uniting over 200 cardiology societies, heart foundations and related organizations. WHF is dedicated to advancing the prevention and control of cardiovascular disease and reducing the global burden of heart disease and stroke.
Professor Ge has long been engaged in clinical cardiology, interventional diagnosis and treatment, and the development of prevention and treatment systems. He pioneered the standardized, regionally coordinated emergency care model represented by chest pain centers in China, which has since offered a replicable practice sample to countries and regions with limited medical resources. He has also championed homegrown innovation, leading the development of domestically produced coronary stents and interventional devices, performing China's first transcatheter aortic valve implantation, and inventing the ValveClamp transapical mitral valve clamping procedure.
Upon his election, Ge put forward the governing philosophy of Heart Health for EVERYONE — From Promise to Practice, and expressed his attitude toward the role with the words: I am not running for a title — I am running to serve.
Guided by this vision, he outlined five priority areas of work, including advancing equity in cardiovascular health; strengthening emergency cardiovascular systems; helping resource-limited countries establish sustainable local talent pipelines through international training and specialist education; deepening cooperation tailored to the Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America, and advancing localized prevention and treatment solutions; facilitating the cross-border sharing of guidelines, research, technology, and educational outcomes, translating innovation into health benefits reachable at the primary care level.
Professor Ge said his future work will focus on shifting the preventive frontier upstream and strengthening primary-level capacity, with particular attention to community- and county-level treatment networks in low- and middle-income countries, so that heart health moves from a shared vision to global action.
According to WHF, the President-Elect will begin transitional work under the Federation's statutes, working with members worldwide to bring cardiovascular health equity onto more national policy agendas.
Zhongshan Hospital said it will seize this opportunity to further deepen international medical exchange and cooperation, contributing Chinese wisdom to the equitable and inclusive development of global cardiovascular health.
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Source: ZhongShan Hospital Fudan University
Writer: WANG Mengqi
Editor: LI Yijie
