Bob Kocher

Bob Kocher, MD is a Partner at Venrock and focuses on healthcare IT and services investments. He currently serves on the Boards of Devoted Health, Virta Health, Aledade, Lyra Health, where he is also a co-founder, and Premera. He is a Board Observer at Grand Rounds, Stride, Renew, Doctor on Demand, and Robin. He is formerly a Director at Jiff and Castlight Health (CSLT). Additionally, he is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, Senior Fellow and Advisory Board Member at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at USC, and Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution. He serves on the Advisory Boards of Harvard Medical School Health Care Policy Department and National Institute of Healthcare Management (NIHCM). He is also a member of the Health Affairs Editorial Board. Prior to Venrock, Bob served in the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Healthcare and Economic Policy on the National Economic Council. In the Obama Administration, Bob was one of the shapers of the Affordable Care Act focusing on cost, quality, and delivery system reform and health IT policy. He was one of the leaders of the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” childhood obesity initiative, led the formation of the Partnership for a Healthier America, and served on the Federal Advisory Panel charged with developing a national obesity strategy. He also co-founded the Health Data Initiative with Todd Park, a joint effort of HHS and the Institute of Medicine, to release healthcare data to spur private sector innovation to improve healthcare cost and quality. For the past five years, he has served as Co-Chair of the Health Datapalooza. Before the White House, Bob was a Partner at McKinsey & Company where he led McKinsey Global Institute’s healthcare economics work and Center for United States Health System Reform. He has worked widely across the US and international healthcare systems to improve regulatory policy, economic performance, labor productivity, clinical outcomes, and patient experience. Bob received undergraduate degrees from the University of Washington and a medical degree from George Washington University. He completed a research fellowship with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health, and went on to complete his internal medicine residency training at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Harvard Medical School.