Professor Gillan Leng CBE
President, Royal Society of Medicine
Speaker's biography
Professor Gillian Leng CBE is a clinician by background, with a passion for using evidence to improve care. Professor Leng joined NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, in 2001 to establish its clinical guidelines programme. In 2020, she became only its second CEO. She led the development of a new 5 year strategy and set out updated methods and processes to put NICE at the forefront of evaluating new technologies and to deliver dynamic living guidelines for frontline staff.
Her career has covered a breadth of sectors including wider public health, healthcare, education and social care. It has entailed close working with the life science industries, patient organisations, professional societies, academia, plus local and national government across the United Kingdom. She has chaired national and international boards and committees, bringing comprehensive media experience across a range of complex topics.
She is now the President at the Royal Society of Medicine, with a number of other non-executive roles. She retains her interest in the use of high quality evidence and is a trustee of the Cochrane Collaboration and an executive committee member of Alive, the international Alliance for Living Evidence.
