Richard Smith is chair of trustees at ICDDR,B, formerly known as the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. He is also chair of Patients Know Best – a company that brings all medical and social care records together in one place, under the control of patients – and chair of the Cochrane Library Oversight Committee.

Until recently, he was the Director of the UnitedHealth Chronic Disease Initiative. This is a programme with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, that has created 11 centres in low- and middle-income countries that research, build capacity, and advise on policy to reduce the burden of noncommunicable disease.

In 1979 he joined the British Medical Journal, and was the editor of the journal and chief executive of the BMJ Publishing Group from 1991 until 2004. A member of the board of the Public Library of Science from 2004 to 2011, he continues to blog for the BMJ and to publish regularly.